Exploring Culture: Understanding Material and Nonmaterial Components

1. Chapter 3, Culture • The Challenge of Defining Culture • Material and Nonmaterial Components • The Role of Geographical and Historical Forces

2. Chapter 3, Culture • Culture As a Tool for the Problems of Living • The Relationship Between Material and Nonmaterial Culture • The Home Culture As the Standard • Subcultures

3. The Challenges of Defining Culture • Describing a culture. • Determining who belongs to a group designated as a culture. • Identifying the distinguishing characteristics that set one culture apart from others.

4. Principles of Culture • Culture consists of material and nonmaterial components. • Geographic and historical forces shape the character of culture. • Culture is learned.

5. Principles of Culture • People are products of cultural experiences but are not cultural replicas of one another. • Culture is the tool that enables individuals to adjust to the problems of living. • It is difficult to separate the effects of non material and material culture on behavior.

6. Principles of Culture • People borrow ideas, materials, products, and other inventions from other societies. • The home culture is the standard people use to make judgments about the culture of another society. • In every society there are groups that possess traits that set them apart from the main culture.

7. Nonmaterial Culture • Beliefs • Values • Norms

8. Characteristics of Language • Conveys important messages above and beyond the actual meaning of words. • Words refer to more than things they also describe relationships. • Common expressions embody the preoccupations of the culture.

9. Culture Shock Intensity depends on several factors: • Extent to which the home and foreign cultures differ. • The level of the person’s preparation or knowledge about the new culture. • Circumstances surrounding the encounter.

10. Cultural Relativism • A foreign culture should not be judged by the standards of a home culture. • A behavior or way of thinking must be examined in its cultural context.

11. Challenges in Defining Culture • People are products of cultural experiences, but people from the same culture are not replicas of one another. • People borrow ideas, materials, products and other invention from those in other societies.

12. Cultural Diffusion Occurs through many kinds of relationships • Everyday mingling • Marketplace • Outsiders make efforts to transform, reform or replace a cultural characteristic.