Chapter 2: Culture

Objectives (slide 1 of 2)2.1 Culture• Define culture and discuss its significance on individuals and

society. • Describe cultural universals and cultural diversity. • Explain ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

2.2 Components of Nonmaterial Culture• Illustrate key components of culture and discuss their

importance.

2.3 Cultural Change• Describe the basic processes of discovery, invention, and diffusion

in cultural change. • Examine the use of technology in sociocultural evolution.

Objectives (slide 2 of 2)2.4 Cultural Diversity• Define high culture, popular culture, subcultures, and

countercultures. • Illustrate how each is related to social class and

resistance to the dominant culture. • Discuss the differences between multiculturalism and a

global culture.

2.5 Theoretical Perspectives on Culture• Illustrate how the functional, conflict, and social

Interaction theories provide different insights into culture.

The Significance of Culture

• Culture: A combination of ideas, behaviors, and material objects that members of a society have created and adopted for carrying out necessary tasks of daily life– Society: People living in a specific geographic

region who share a common culture• Cultural transmission: The passing of culture

from one generation to the next• Culture shock: Disorientation when first

experiencing a new culture

Cultural Universals and Cultural Diversity

• Cultural universals: Cultural elements found in all cultures

Ethnocentrism versus Cultural Relativism

Ethnocentrism The view that your own culture is the standard against which other cultures can be judged right or wrong

Cultural relativism A view that judges other cultures not by standards of the observer’s culture, but by the standards of the other culture itself

Material CultureMaterial culture includes:

• Art• Architecture• Technological artifacts– Technology consists of tools and the

knowledge necessary to create and use them effectively.

• Material objects

Nonmaterial Culture

Nonmaterial culture: Intangible creations of people expressing everything from fundamental religious beliefs to abstract scientific knowledge to proscriptions for behavior.

Symbols

• Symbols: Words, gestures, pictures, physical artifacts, in fact anything, that conveys meaning to people who share a culture

Nonverbal GesturesNonverbal gestures can have surprisingly different meanings

in different cultures. For example:• Eating with one’s left hand in Islamic societies is an insult

because they reserve their left hand for unclean tasks.• In Korea, letting someone see the bottom of your shoe is an

insult.• The “thumbs up” signal used in the United States to indicate

approval has a very different meaning in Australia, Iraq, and some other countries, where it means “up yours!”

• The gesture in which a circle is made of the thumb and forefinger to indicate “OK” in the United States, instead means in Germany is a reference to what may be politely described as “the south end of a mule headed north.”

Language (slide 1 of 2)

• Language: An abstract system of symbols, and rules for their usage permitting people to represent abstract thoughts and experiences and communicate them to others– Crucial for the transmission of culture from one

generation to another – Printed symbols for written languages vary widely – Provides one of the greatest barriers to the

transmission of culture due to substantial variation in languages and the difficulty of learning multiple languages

Language (slide 2 of 2)• Thousands of languages

and dialects are in use throughout the world. • Roughly 6% (389) of the

world’s languages are spoken by 94% of the world’s population.

• The remaining 94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of the world’s people.

• English is well on its way to becoming an unofficial global language because it is the most common second language in many parts of the world and is the most commonly spoken language on the Internet, with Chinese a close second.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Argues that language shapes thought– Different languages have unique vocabularies

representing different levels of refinement of concepts.

• This is a controversial hypothesis because:– It may be difficult or even impossible for people

who speak different languages to share the same thoughts and ideas completely and accurately.

– Language restricts the conception of reality.

Language and Race, Class, and Gender

• Language offers insight into some of the ways we intentionally or unintentionally express preconceptions about gender, people of different races and ethnicities, and people in different social classes.

Cultural Values (slide 1 of 2)

• Cultural values: Standards of desirability, rightness, or importance in a society– Indicate whether something is good or bad,

important or unimportant, attractive or unattractive– Can help us understand why people react as they do

to different events• Personal values are values individuals hold on

their own. – Include preferences for music, tastes in clothes, etc.

Cultural Values (slide 2 of 2)In the United States, sociologist Robin Williams found several dominant values in American culture:• Achievement and success• Individualism • Activity and work • Efficiency and practicality• Progress• Material comfort • Humanitarianism • Science and technology• Freedom • Democracy • Equal opportunity• Racism and group superiority

Emerging and Merging Values (slide 1 of 2)

Geert Hofstede studied workplace values surveys of over 116,000 employees collected between 1967 and 1973 in over 70 countries. He found four dimensions distinguishing different cultures:• Individualism–collectivism• Masculinity–femininity• Power distance• Uncertainty avoidance

Emerging and Merging Values(slide 2 of 2)

The World Values Survey Association found that over time, as societies become more affluent, they: 1. Deemphasize traditional values such

as religion and emphasize more secular-rational values such as technology and science

2. Deemphasize basic survival and place greater emphasis on self-expression values

Norms• Norms: Expectations for behavior– Part of the nonmaterial culture– Apply to social roles that people play more than to the

individuals themselves• Folkways: Rules governing everyday conduct that

are not considered to be morally important and are not strictly enforced

• Mores: Serious norms for important activities having a strong moral imperative and strictly enforced

• Taboos: Norms considered so important that to violate it is seen as reprehensible

Laws and Social Control

• Informal norms: Norms that are expressed informally and never written down

• Formal norms: Norms that are written down and enforced

• Sanctions: Punishments or rewards designed to encourage behaviors conforming to norms and discourage behaviors that violate norms

• Formal sanctions: Explicit punishments written into regulations or laws

• Law: A formal norm that has been enacted by a legislature and is enforced by formal sanctions

Ideal and Real Culture

A disconnect often exists between our ideal notions of what we should and what people really do:• Example norm: Don’t have sex outside of

marriage. The percentage of people who don’t follow the norm:– 10% of married women– 25% of married men

• Moral holidays: Times or places in which the usual norms are suspended and can be violated without punishment

Causes of Cultural Change

• Discovery: Occurs when something that was unknown becomes known

• Invention: A new combination of cultural elements

• Cultural diffusion: The spread of cultural elements, including objects and ideas, from one culture to another

Cultural change often occurs as a result of one or more of three basic processes:

Cultural Lag

• Cultural lag theory: A theory that argues that technological change is the driving force for much change and that changes in other elements of culture often lag behind technology

• Cultural integration: The coherence and consistency typically found among elements of a single culture

Technology and Cultural Change

• Sociocultural evolution: Development in human societies resulting from cumulative change in cultural information from discoveries, inventions, and diffusion

• Four levels of development: – Hunting and gathering societies– Horticultural and pastoralism– Agricultural– Industrial

Hunting and Gathering Societies

• People rely on readily available vegetation and hunt game for subsistence.

• Only a few people can be supported in any one area, hence they usually have no more than about 40 members and must be nomadic.

• These societies usually have very little division of labor, with most people performing the same basic jobs.

• Because belongings must be carried from place to place, there is little incentive to accumulate goods, and hence, very little inequality.

Horticultural and Pastoral Societies

• Horticultural societies are societies in which people plant crops in small gardens without the use of plows or more advanced technology for subsistence. Horticultural societies made it possible to establish permanent settlements.

• Pastoral societies are societies in which animals are domesticated and raised for food in pastures. Pastoral societies tend to develop in arid regions where there is insufficient rainfall to raise crops on the land. Pastoral societies are usually nomadic, moving on to a new area after the animals exhaust the food supply in each pasture.

Agricultural Societies

• Made possible by the invention of the animal-drawn plow, making agricultural production vastly more efficient

• Led to an even greater food surplus, permitting a much more complex division of labor

• During this period, great wealth was accumulated by a few, and stratification became a major feature of social life.

• Centralization of power and resources eventually led to the development of the institution of the state to further consolidate the gains of the rich and powerful.

Industrial Societies

• Rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the production of goods

• Made possible by the Industrial Revolution• Have many large manufacturing plants • Larger surpluses of manufactured goods caused: – Soaring population levels– Increased productivity, making more goods available

to everyone – Greater inequality – Surplus of labor, leading to extremely low wages

Postindustrial Society

• Dominated by information, services, and high technology more than the production of goods

• The information revolution began with the invention of the integrated circuit, or computer chip. Those chips have revolutionized our lives, running our appliances, and providing calculators, computers, and other electronic devices to control our world.

• No one knows what all of the implications of the information revolution will be for social life, but technology is changing the nature of work, how families spend their time, our health, and virtually every aspect of our lives.

Cultural Diversity

• Homogeneous societies: Members are generally from the same ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds and share a common culture

• Heterogeneous societies: Members come from diverse ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds

High Culture

• High culture: The artifacts, values, knowledge, beliefs, and other cultural elements that elites in a society use to distinguish themselves from the masses

• Represents a strategy by people in upper social classes to differentiate themselves from the masses through the creation and consumption of cultural elements that may remain largely inaccessible or not understood by those in lower social classes

Popular Culture

• Popular culture: All the artifacts, values, knowledge, beliefs, and other cultural elements that appeal to the masses

Subcultures

Dominant culture:• The culture that takes

precedence over other cultures in activities or events involving people from many categories of the population

Subculture:• A culture containing

many elements of the dominant culture, but having unique features that distinguish its members from the rest of the population

Countercultures

• Counterculture: A subculture that challenges important elements of the dominant culture, such as beliefs, attitudes, or values, and seeks to create an alternative lifestyle

Multiculturalism

• Multiculturalism: A perspective that recognizes the contributions of diverse groups to our society and holds that no single culture is any better than all the rest

A Global Culture?

• Modern examples of cultural diffusion:– Global migration– Electronic communication– Air travel– Global commerce

• Cultural leveling: The reduction of differences (both good and bad) between cultures, resulting in a loss of cultural uniqueness and the loss of cultural heritage

Functionalist Perspective

• Functional theory explains culture by identifying the positive functions performed by cultural elements. – Cultural elements tend to persist across

generations when they perform a useful function for society as a whole.

Conflict Perspectives (slide 1 of 2)

• Conflict theory argues that cultural elements persist when they support the interests of powerful members of society and are resisted or eliminated when they are in conflict with those interests.– This control is often exerted through a process

in which elites manage the interpretation of events in ways that mobilize support for their own agenda and thwart the agenda of others.

Conflict Perspectives (slide 2 of 2)

• The conflict perspective predicts that tastes in music are used as status markers to help mark the boundaries among occupational status groups.

Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives

• Social interactionist theories examine the ways in which culture is socially constructed, both in the ongoing reconstruction of existing cultures in everyday life and during periods of dramatic cultural change. Those efforts are guided by a desire to find meaning and consistency in culture.– Societies discard elements of culture that have no

reason for existing.– What are left are meaningful elements of culture that

are reasonable by the standards of a culture and that have significance in that culture.