1. Chapter 3
CULTURE

2. Chapter Overview What is Culture? Components of Symbolic Culture
Many Cultural Worlds: Subcultures and Countercultures
Values in U.S. Society
Technology in the Global Village
Cultural Lag, Diffusion, and Labeling

3. What is Culture? Culture is: How is this accomplished? Two components
The language, beliefs, values, norms, and behaviors passed on from one generation to the next
How is this accomplished?
Two components
Nonmaterial culture
Material culture

4. What is Culture? Material Nonmaterial
Belief system, values, behavior, social interactions, language, gestures, and assumptions about the world
Cultural artifacts and objects people create and assign meanings to.

5. Culture Within Us
Our speech, gestures, beliefs, customs are usually taken for granted
We assume that they are normal and natural
Cultural lens
Perception of reality
Guides our behavior and helps us make decisions

6. Cultural Consequences
Sometimes our assumptions are challenged
Culture Shock
Ethnocentrism
Practicing Cultural Relativism

7. Ethnocentrism and Culture Shock
What is Normal, Natural, or Usual?
We believe our ways are “Normal”
Culture Shock- coming into contact with a culture that is different from what we know
Cultures are in conflict
Ethnocentrism-the belief that our culture is the “best” or superior to all others
Tendency to evaluate other groups according to one’s own standards
Negative consequences
Positive consequences

8. Cultural Relativism
Attempt to understand another culture’s perspective and not based on one’s own perspective
Refocus our lens so we can appreciate other ways of life instead of asserting “our way is right and the only way”
Examples
Hindu diet and US diet
Bull fighting
Values

9. When Cultural Relativism Does Not Apply
Cultural values result in exploitation
Involuntary
Inhumane
Oppressive
Examples
Honor Killing
Female Circumcision

10. Components of Symbolic Culture
Symbols
Something people attach meaning and then use to communicate with others.
Nonmaterial culture
Material culture

11. Components of Symbolic Culture
Gestures
Using the body to communicate with others to send messages without using words
Universal, but meaning changes completely from one culture to another
Can lead to misunderstandings, embarrassment, or conflict
Some universal gestures

12. Components of Symbolic Culture
Language
System of symbols that can be put together in infinite number of ways to communicate abstract thought.
Five Purposes of Languages
Allows Human Experience to Be Cumulative
Provides a Social or Shared Past
Provides a Social or Shared Future
Allows Shared Perspectives
Allows Complex, Shared, Goal-Directed Behavior

13. Components of Symbolic Culture
Language & Perceptions
Language has embedded within it ways of looking at the world
Part of language is not only to learn it, but also ways of thinking and perceiving.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
The language of each culture does not merely influence how people understand the world it shapes ways of thinking and perceiving
Meaning beyond words
EXAMPLES
Welfare
Stupid
Labeling or Stereotyping
Racial profiling
Resumes

14. Components of Symbolic Culture
Values
Standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable, good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
Guide our choices or preferences in life
In modern pluralistic societies, such as the U.S., value orientations are complex.

15. Values in U.S. Society Romantic Love Democracy Science and Technology
Religiosity
Freedom
Efficiency and Practicality
Education
Humanitarianism
Activity and Work
Racism and Group Superiority
Material Comfort
Individualism
Equality
Progress
Achievement and Success

16. Values in U.S. Society Value Cluster Ideal Culture Real Culture
Values together form a larger whole
Values do not exist alone
Examples
Value Clash
When core values change causing conflict between social groups
Change is viewed as a threat to their life, an undermining of both their present and their future.
Ideal Culture
Values that society views as important and worth aspiring up to
What people "should do“
Real Culture
The values and norms and people actually follow
What people "actually do"

17. Values in U.S. Society Emerging Values
A value cluster of 4 interrelated core values
Leisure
self fulfillment
Physical fitness
Youthfulness
Environmental consciousness

18. Components of Symbolic Culture
Norms
Norms - Expectations or rules for behavior
Informal and Formal Norms
Norms will change as cultures change
Sanctions - Reaction to following or breaking norms
Positive Sanctions
Negative Sanctions
Moral holidays

19. Components of Symbolic Culture
Types of Norms
Folkways - Norms that are not strictly enforced
Weak social norms
Not a threat to society
Examples
Mores - Norms, when broken, go against a society’s basic core values
Strictly enforced norms
Norms are viewed as essential and everyone must follow
Taboos - Norms, when broken, are considered repulsive
People who violate these norms are viewed as unfit for society

20. Many Cultural Worlds Subculture: Countercultures:
A world within the dominant culture
Groups that share many elements of mainstream culture but maintain their own distinctive customs, values, norms, and lifestyles.
The norms and values do not clash with those of the dominant culture
Countercultures:
Groups whose values, lifestyles, norms, attitudes, and other behaviors are in opposition to the broader society
The norms and values clash with those of the dominant culture

21. Cultural Diffusion and Cultural Leveling
Cultural Diffusion: The spreading of cultural characteristics from one culture to another
Why is this happening so rapidly?
Cultural Leveling: When cultures start to become similar to each other

22. Perspectives on Culture
Functionalist Perspective
All cultures are in part practical responses to environmental conditions
Cultural ecological approach
Examines the relationship between a culture and its total environment
Example: Hindu culture
Prevents ethnocentrism
Cultural integration approach
Show how the cultural practices of groups tend to “fit together”
Changes in one element may have broad repercussions for the culture of any group.
Example: Technological changes

23. Perspectives on Culture
Conflict Perspective
The values, beliefs, and traditions of a nation or society are not necessarily a product of consensus and “social need”
Culture is highly complex with many strains and contradictions between conflicting group interests and needs.
Groups with power and wealth have the resources to control and influence national culture
Examples: slave era, corporate capitalism
Cultural hegemony
The domination of cultural industries by elite groups

24. Perspectives on Culture
Symbolic Interaction Perspective
Focuses on how individuals and groups use symbols to define and interpret reality.
People everywhere live in “symbolic worlds” that are created and reproduced by diverse social groups
Our daily lives are structured by the symbols and meanings of many groups
If groups define something as real, whether or not they truly exist, “they are real in their consequences”