Culture

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

2. All the shared products of a human group. Includes physical objects, beliefs, values, and behaviors. Methods by which collections of people deal with their environment. Material Culture: the physical objects that people create. Nonmaterial Culture: abstract human creations. 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. Culture Lag: when nonmaterial culture can’t keep up with material culture. Symbols: stands for something else - shared meaning attached to it. Language: organization of written or spoken symbols into a standardized system. Components of Culture

4. Components continued… • Values: shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, beautiful or ugly. • Norms: the shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in specific situations (expectations) based on a community’s shared values. • Based on who and where the individual is.

5. American Value System Value Cluster: values that fit together to form a larger whole. Value Contradiction: to follow one, means you must given up another • 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.

6. Some American Values • Certain values are shared by the majority of Americans: • Personal Achievement/Success • Work • Morality • Humanitarianism • Efficiency • Practicality • Material Comfort • Equity • Democracy • Freedom • Self-Fulfillment • Leisure • Physical Fitness • Youthfulness • Environmental Concerns • Individualism • Science/Technology • Education • Religiosity • Romantic Love

7. One who breaks the norms = deviant. Some people are expected to behave in certain ways based on their specific role. 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). Norms more in depth… • Mores: have great moral significance attached to them (violation of them endangers the well-being and stability of society). • Taboo: a norm so strong that it often brings revulsion if violated.

8. What makes people in society conform to norms? • Social Control: means by which social norms are upheld and enforced. • Internalization: belief that the norm is good, useful or appropriate - becomes part of an individual’s personality. • Sanctions: rewards or punishments that a society sets up to enforce the norms.

9. Positive: reward or positive reaction Negative: expression of disapproval for breaking a norm Physical or Psychological Formal vs. Informal Psychological: address the feelings and emotions of a person. Informal: unwritten and based on personal relations and public opinion. Sanctions continued… Moral Holiday: specified times when people are allowed to break a norm Moral Holiday Place: locations where norms are expected to be broken

10. Urinal Behavior Quiz Number the Urinals from left to right 1-5. Following the scenario given, describe the proper etiquette and why… boys only on this one. Girls, think about our bathrooms 1 2 3 4 5

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

12. Variation among and within Society • Culture Shock: disorientation experienced when we cannot make sense of the world when our nonmaterial culture “fails” us. • Ethnocentrism: the tendency to view one’s own culture and group as superior to others. • 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. • Contra culture: subcultures whose values (outlaw motorcyclists) or activities and goals (terrorists) conflict with mainstream culture. • 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.

13. Cultural Diversity and Universals Cultural Diversity Cultural Universals 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? • If humans all have the same basic needs, how can cultures be so different? • Cultural Diffusion: the spread of cultural characteristics from one group to another. • Cultural Leveling: process by which cultures become similar to one another.

14. Symbolic Culture • 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/

15. Language Continued • 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.

16. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis • 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.

17. Gesture Quiz