1. Generalizations
Patterns of behavior can be seen in particular individuals
Sociologists look at personal choice in social context:
Individuals are unique but, society’s social forces shape us into “types” of people Categories make us conform

2. Stereotype Generalizations are not stereotypes Stereotype:
Exaggerated description applied to every person in some category

3. CULTURE
The values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that form a people’s way of life

4. Forms of Culture Nonmaterial culture Material culture
The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society
Material culture
The tangible items created by members of a society

5. Cultural Transmission
Elements of Culture
Cultural Transmission
How we pass culture to the next generation is based on how we communicate it.

6. Symbols and Language Symbol Language
Meaning from items recognized by people who share a culture
Reality for humans is found in the meaning of things they carry with them
Language
A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another
Non-Verbal Language
Facial Expressions are universal language
Gestures can carry different meanings

7. Cultural Universals
Traits that are part of every known culture and include:
Facial Expressions
Concept of Family
Funeral Rites
Jokes

8. Cultural Transmission
Humans pass our experiences to the next generation in how we communicate it.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
People see and understand the world through language
The limits of language indicate the limits of one’s world
The language we use determines how we experience the world and how we express that experience.

9. Values and Beliefs Together they form attitudes and opinion Values
Culturally defined guidelines that support actions (behavior, communication, interaction with others)
Ideas society feels are important
Beliefs
Statements people accept as truth, without proof
“We are all created equal”
Together they form attitudes and opinion

10. Norms and Social Control
rules and expectations for life including:
FOLKWAYS
(difference between right and rude)
Norms for routine and causal interaction, hold the door open for the person behind you
PRESCRIPTIVE
Shoulds, “drive on the right side of the road”
MORES
(taboos)
Widely observed and have great moral significance
PROSCRIPTIVE
Should nots, “don’t use drugs”
Social Control
Goal is to have people in a society conform to the expectations
guilt, shame, law, sanctions (rewards or punishments)

11. Ideal v. Real Culture Ideal Culture Real Culture
The way things should be
Mandated by values and norms
Real Culture
The way things actually occur in everyday life

12. Sociology teaches us there are many ways of life in one world
Cultural Diversity
Sociology teaches us there are many ways of life in one world

13. Culture Shock Culture shock can be experienced or inflicted.
How people read new surroundings.
Culture shock can be experienced or inflicted.

14. Cultural Diversity Counterculture High culture Popular culture
Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite
Popular culture
Cultural patterns that are widespread among society’s population
Subculture
Cultural patterns set apart some segment of society’s population
Counterculture
Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society
1960s: Hippies: Rejected material possessions and competition in America

15. Cultural Changes Invention: Discovery: Diffusion:
creating new cultural elements
Telephone or airplane
Discovery:
recognizing and better understanding of something already in existence
DNA or Outer Space
Diffusion:
the spread of cultural traits from one society to another
Silk or Jazz

16. Interdependence Ethnocentrism Cultural relativism Multiculturalism
The practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture
Cultural relativism
The practice of judging a culture by its own standards
Multiculturalism
An educational program recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting the equality of all cultural traditions
E pluribus unum: “out of many, one”

17. Language Diversity across the United States Of the 262 million people age five or older in the United States, the 2000 census reports that 47 million (18 percent) speak a language other than English at home.