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26 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Culture Defined: Components |
• Everything people have • Material possessions • Everything people think • Ideas, values, and attitudes • Everything people do • Behavior patterns |
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What are Symbols? |
• Something that stands for something else,either verbal or nonverbal • The ability to symbolize is the most fundamentalaspect of culture. • Symbols help people identify, sort, and classifythings, ideas, and behaviors. • When people symbolize using language, theycan express experiences that took place earlieror suggest events that may happen. |
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What are Civilizations? |
Civilizations are cultures that have developedcities. |
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How are Civilizations are characterized by? |
• Monumental architecture • Centralized (hierarchical) governments • Fully efficient food production systems • Writing |
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Culture Is Shared? |
•For something to be cultural, it must have ameaning shared by most people in a society.• When people share a culture, they can predicthow others will behave. • When we step outside our culture,misunderstandings can occur. |
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What is Culture Shock? |
A psychological disorientation experiencedwhen attempting to operate in a radicallydifferent cultural environment |
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What is a Subculture? |
A subdivision of a national culture that sharessome features with the larger society and alsodiffers in some important respects |
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What are Pluralistic Societies? |
Societies composed of a number of differentcultural or subcultural groups |
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How is Culture Learned? |
•Culture is acquired through the process oflearning or interacting with oneʼs culturalenvironment. • Acquiring culture after we are born is calledenculturation. |
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Learning Versus Instincts |
• During the first half of the 20th century,psychologists and other social scientists tendedto explain human behavior in terms of variousinstincts or genetically-based propensities. • Today, most social scientists support the notionthat humans are born with little predeterminedbehavior. |
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Culture Is Taken for Granted? |
• Culture is deeply embedded in our psyche. • How we act and what we think are oftenhabitual. |
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What is Monochronic culture? |
A culture whose people view time in a linear fashion and place great importance on punctuality and keepingon schedule, and prefer to work on one task at a time. I.E. North Americansplace a high value onpunctuality,schedules, anddeadlines. It is aculture that tends tobe monochronic. |
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What is Polychronic culture? |
A culture in which people perform a number of tasks at the same time and place a higher value on nurturing and maintaining social relationships rather than on punctuality |
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How does Culture Influences BiologicalProcesses. |
• Human existence is bio-cultural — a product ofbiological and cultural factors. • Our bodies and biological processes areheavily influenced by our culture. |
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Our Bodies and Culture |
• People in all cultures alter their bodiesbecause they believe it makes them look moreattractive. • Even our body shape is related to a largeextent on our cultural ideas. • In the U.S., altering the body through plasticsurgery has become increasingly popular. |
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What are Cultural Universals? |
Societies share common features because theysolve problems shared by all human societies: • Economic system • Systems of marriage and family • Educational system • Social control system • System of supernatural beliefs • Systems of communication |
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Culture: Adaptive andMaladaptive |
• Culture is the way humans adapt to theirenvironments so they can survive. • The adaptive nature of culture allows people tobe able to live in previously uninhabitableplaces, such as deserts, the polar region, underthe sea, and outer space. •Culture enables humans to adapt to hostile climates,such as is illustrated here by a colony of scientistsliving at this research station in Antarctica. • Some features of a culture may be maladaptive: • The use of automobiles coupled with industrialpollutants is destroying the air. |
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Cultures are GenerallyIntegrated |
• Early functionalist idea that cultural systems areintegrated into a whole cultural unit in much thesame way that the various parts of a biologicalorganism (such as a respiratory system orcirculatory system) function to maintain thehealth of the organism. |
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Cultural Interconnections |
• Cultures are logical and coherent systems. Parts are connected to each other andinfluenced by each other. Changes in one part of culture may causechange in another part as well. |
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Cultural Change: Two Factors |
•Internal changes (innovations orinventions) can spread to other cultures andoccur in societies with the greatest number ofcultural elements. • External changes (cultural diffusion) are thespreading of cultural elements from oneculture to another. • Responsible for the greatest amount of change inany society. |
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Cultural Diffusion |
• Cultural diffusion, notindependent invention, isresponsible for thegreatest amount ofculture change in allsocieties. • Here a McDonaldʼs inCalifornia incorporatesproperties of Chinesefeng shui. |
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Characteristics of Diffusion |
• Diffusion is selective. • It is a two-way, reciprocal process. • Cultural elements may be modified. • Some parts of culture are more likely to diffusethan others. • Diffusion is affected by other importantvariables. |
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Linked Changes |
• Changes in one part of a culture broughtabout by changes in other parts. |
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Acculturation |
• A specific form of cultural diffusion in which subordinate culture adopts many of the cultural traits of a more powerful culture |
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Small-Scale Societies |
A small-scale society is a society: • with a small population. • that is technologically simple. • that is usually preliterate. • that has little labor specialization. • that is not stratified. Small-scale Societies • A distinction between small-scale and morecomplex societies does not imply that societiescan be pigeonholed into one or the othercategory. • All societies can be viewed along a continuumfrom small-scale to complex. |
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Culture and the Individual |
• Culture exerts a powerful influence on individualconduct. • People may choose to go against culturalconventions. • Anthropologists distinguish between idealbehavior and real behavior. |
