Culture

1. Culture What do people mean when they say: “You are so cultured”?

2. All the shared products of a human group. • Past down from one generation to the next. • Methods by which collections of people deal with their environment. • We assume ours is “normal” or “natural” • Material Culture: the physical objects that people create. • Jewelry, art, architecture, weapons • Nonmaterial Culture: abstract human creations. • Ways of thinking and doing (interaction) • Society: group of mutually interdependent people who have organized in a way to share a common culture. Culture

3. Culture is learned and shared. • Specific components vary among societies and changes occur over time. • Emerging technology has impacted our social life: • Culture Lag: when nonmaterial culture can’t keep up with material culture. • EX: texting and driving • Cultural Diffusion: the spread of cultural characteristics from one group to another. • EX: adoption of superior weapons • Cultural Leveling: process by which cultures become similar Components of Culture

4. Things people attach meaning to (usually nonmaterial) that they use to communicate. • Gestures: using one’s body to communicate (meanings might change from one culture to the other) • Some gestures are biological. • Language: organization of written or spoken symbols into a standardized system. • Provide deeper understanding of what we are communicating • Represents objects and abstract thought. • Emoticons: “written gestures” for expressing yourself online • http://pc.net/emoticons/ Symbolic Culture

5. Gestures Quiz

6. Allows culture to develop – move beyond immediate experiences. • Provides a social or shared past and future – understand past events (times, dates, places). • Allows for shared perspectives – form a shared understanding that forms the basis of social life • Not sharing a language while living alongside one another, invites miscommunication and suspicion. • Allows complex, shared, and goal-directed behaviors – establish purpose. Language Continued

7. Language creates ways of thinking and perceiving (rather than objects) • In the United States we have learned to classify people (with given titles) – jocks, goths, stoners, skaters, preps, etc. – because of that we will perceive people in an entirely different way from someone who does not know these classifications. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

8. Values: shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable. • Value Cluster: values that fit together to form a larger whole. • Value Contradiction: to follow one, means you must given up another • American Value System • Certain values are shared by the majority of Americans. • Value systems change due to various social factors, which leads to value conflicts as some values change over time. • Personal Achievement • Work • Morality • Humanitarianism • Efficiency • Practicality • Material Comfort • Equity • Democracy • Freedom • Self-Fulfillment Values

9. Norms: the shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in specific situations (expectations) based on a community’s shared values. • One who breaks the norms = deviant. • Some people are expected to behave in certain ways based on their specific role in society • EX: profession, age, gender • Folkways: norms that do not have great moral significance attached to them (the etiquette and customs of a people that are not of critical importance to the society). • EX: Walking in the wrong direction at the mall. • Mores: have great moral significance attached to them (violation of them endangers the well-being and stability of society). • EX: man walking down the street with nothing covering his lower half • EX: Stealing, rape, and murder • Some group’s folkways are another group’s mores. Norms

10. Law: written rule of conduct that is enforced by the government. • What is the difference between laws and mores? • Taboo: a norm so strong that it often brings revulsion if violated • EX: eating human flesh, having sex with one’s parents Norms Continued

11. Expressions of approval or disapproval for upholding or violating norms. • Positive: reward or positive reaction (prize, trophy, hug, smile, “high-five”) • Negative: expression of disapproval for breaking a norm (frown, look of disgust, prison sentence) • Physical or Psychological • Formal vs. Informal • Moral Holiday: specified times when people are allowed to break a norm • EX: Mardi Gras (public drunkenness and nudity) • Moral Holiday Place: locations where norms are expected to be broken • EX: Red Light District, nude beaches Sanctions

12. Number the Urinals from left to right, 1-5. • Following the scenario given, describe the proper etiquette… girls imagine this with the stales. • Be able to explain your response Urinal Behavior Quiz

13. List the expected etiquette/rules you have learned/follow when using an elevator. • Be sure to explain why that is proper behavior. Elevator Rules

14. Cultural Diversity If humans all have the same basic needs, how can cultures be so different?

15. Some needs are so basic that all societies must develop ways to ensure their fulfillment. • However human beings have the ability to meet these needs in a vast number of ways. • Example - survival => need to care for young => families. • But are all families the same? Cultural Universals

16. Ethnocentrism: the tendency to view one’s own culture and group as superior to others. • Culture Shock: disorientation experienced when we cannot make sense of the world when our nonmaterial culture “fails” us. • Cultural Relativism: cultures should be judged by their own standards of their own culture - viewed from the point of view of the members of that society. • Is there such thing as “normal” and “abnormal” when looking at differences in culture? • Subculture: a group in society that shares values, norms, and behaviors that are not shared by the entire population. • EX: Motorcycle enthusiasts, ICP followers • Counterculture: a group that rejects the values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces them with a new set of cultural patterns/practices. • EX: Mormons – value polygamy over monogamy Cultural Variation