WHAT IS CULTURE? PSYC 338
CULTURE IS… “the truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side.” (Blaise Pascal) “the man-made part of the human environment.” (Herskovits, 1948, p. 17)
Definition of Culture Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, Including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values. Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952 (p. 181)
Subjective culture … “is a cultural group’s characteristic way of perceiving its social environment.” Triandis, 1972 (p. 4) Objective culture … is material culture and consists of such elements as dress, food, houses, highways, tools, and machines. Psychological definition
Values, Attitudes and Behaviour Adler, 1972 (p. 89) Attitudes BehaviourValues Culture
A Cognitive Approach Culture denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life. Geertz, 1972 (p. 89)
Another Cognitive Approach Culture is defined as collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another. Hofstede, 1980 (p. 25)
Essential elements of culture * Culture distinguishes the members of one human group from another. * Culture is a shared belief system and has to be learned. * Culture consists of patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting. * Culture influences our behavior mainly unconsciously and is taken for granted. * Culture has strong influence on our identity. * Culture underlies current change. * Cultural patterns are mainly acquired and transmitted by means of communication. * Culture is crystallized in institutions people have built together and therefore takes place in different areas.
Culture is not…. * A social system * Society * Nation People are - members of society - participate in social systems and - share culture.
Our Goals In this class you are going to learn * how culture influences our thinking, feeling and reacting * what happens when members of two different cultures meet * what happens when people leave their own cultural context and have to adapt to new cultures
QUESTIONS FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS What is universal about human beings? What are characteristic features of a certain group of people, e.g. cultural groups? What makes the individual unique? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Universalism Cultural differences can be neglected as the commonalities among human beings outweigh them. Basic psychological processes are common to all members of the species. They constitute a set of psychological givens in all human beings. Cultural Relativism (Boas, 1939) The development of human personality is mainly influenced by our environment. All human behavior is culturally patterned. Cultural relativism seeks to avoid “ethnocentrism” by trying to understand people in their own terms. Ethnocentrism (Sumner, 1906) A strong tendency to use one’s own group’s standards as the standard when viewing other groups, to place one’s group at the top of a hierarchy and to rank all others as lower.
TASKS * Ask yourself: What is important to you? How is this affected by your cultural background? * Take a walk through Wellington and observe your surroundings: What symbols or behaviour do you find that may be influenced by culture?