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culture
Chapter 3
The Basis of Culture
Culture: knowledge, values, customs, and physical
objects that are
shared by members of a society
Society: specific territory inhabited by people who share a common territory
Culture and Heredity
Instincts: innate (unlearned) patterns of behavior
• humans cannot go far on instinct alone
• humans face more complex issues
Is culture more important than instinct for people?
If all women had an instinct for mothering…
• all women would want children
• all women would love and protect their children
How does heredity affect behavior?
Nature v. Nurture
Personality Traits:
½ determined by genetics
½ determined by environmental factors
Reflexes and Drives
Sociobiology
Sociobiology: the study of the biological basis of
human behavior
• believe the behaviors that best help people are biologically based and transmitted in the genetic code
Criticism:
Language and Culture
Symbols, Language & Culture
The most powerful symbols are those thatmake up language
The pen is mightier than ________________.Better safe than _______________.It’s always darkest before _______________.Don’t bite the hand __________________.No news is ________________________.If you lie down with dogs, you’ll __________________.A penny saved is a penny _________________.Children should be seen and not ____________.Better late than ______________.
Common Proverbs
Are Language and Culture Related?
Language frees us from the limits of time and space!
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Hypothesis of linguistic relativity: our idea of reality depends largely upon language
Since languages differ, perceptions differ
What can vocabulary tell you about a culture?
When something is important to a society, there are lots of words to describe it
Norms and Values
Norms: rules defining appropriate and inappropriate behavior
Folkways
Folkways: norms that lack
moral significance
MoresMores: norms that have moral dimensions
that should be
followed by members of the
society
TabooTaboo: a norm so strong that when violated
it calls for
strong punishment
Laws
Law: a norm that is formally defined and
enforced by authorities
Enforcing the Rules
Sanctions: rewards and punishment used to encourage
people to follow norms
Formal Sanctions
Formal Sanctions: sanctions imposed by people given special authority
Informal Sanctions
Informal Sanctions: rewards or punishments that can be
applied by most members of a group
Values - The Basis of Norms
Values: broad ideas about what is good or desirable shared
by people in a society
Basic Values of the United States
• achievement and success
• activity and work
• efficiency and practicality
• equality
• democracy
• group superiority
Beliefs and Physical Objects
Nonmaterial Culture: ideas, knowledge, and beliefs that influence a people’s behavior
Material Culture: the concrete, tangible objects of a culture
Ideal Culture: cultural guidelines that group members claim to accept
Real Culture: actual behavior patterns of members of a group
Cultural Change
discovery
Diffusion
invention
Cultural Diversity
Subculture: group that is part of the dominant culture but that differs from it in some important aspect
Counterculture: a subculture deliberately and consciously opposed to certain central beliefs or attitudes of the dominant culture
Ethnocentrism: judging others in terms of one’s own cultural standards
Cultural Universals: general cultural traits that exist in all cultures
Cultural Particulars: the ways in which a culture expresses universal traits
Why do Cultural Universals exist?