1. Chapter 2
The Concept of Culture

2. What We Will Learn What do anthropologists mean by the term culture?
How do we acquire our culture?
Despite the enormous variation in different cultures, are some common features found in all cultures of the world?

3. Culture Defined Everything people have material possessions
Everything people think
ideas, values, and attitudes
Everything people do
behavior patterns

4. Culture
According to the anthropological perspective, this Australian aboriginal man playing the dijeridoo has as much culture as world famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

5. Three Components of Culture

6. For this text, culture is defined as
a mental map which guides us in relation to our surroundings and to other people.
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
everything people have, think, and do as members of society.
the finer things in life.

7. Answer: 3
For this text, culture is defined as everything that people have, think, and do as members of society.

8. Culture and Civilization
Civilizations are cultures that have developed cities.
Civilizations are characterized by
monumental architecture
centralized (hierarchical) governments
fully efficient food production systems
writing

9. Symbols
The ability to symbolize is the most fundamental aspect of culture.
Symbols help people identify, sort,and classify things, ideas, and behaviors.
When people symbolize using language, they can express experiences that took place earlier or suggest events that may happen.

10. Culture Is Shared
For something to be cultural, it must have a meaning shared by most people in a society.
When people share a culture, they can predict how others will behave.
When we step outside our culture, misunderstandings can occur.

11. Culture is Shared
Societies such as the United States and Canada are composed of a number of subcultural groups.
One such group in the United States are Ravers, who congregate for late night or all-night dance parties and have their own clothing styles and specialized vocabulary.

12. Culture Shock
A psychological disorientation experienced when attempting to operate in a radically different cultural environment.

13. Subculture
A subdivision of a national culture that shares some features with the larger society and also differs in some important respects.

14. Pluralistic Societies
Societies composed of a number of different cultural or subcultural groups.

15. Culture Is Learned
Culture is acquired through the process of learning or interacting with one’s cultural environment.
Acquiring culture after we are born is called enculturation.

16. Learning Versus Instincts
During the first half of the twentieth century, psychologists and other social scientists tended to explain human behavior in terms of various instincts or genetically based propensities.
Today, most social scientists support the notion that humans are born with little predetermined behavior.

17. Culture is Learned
Children learn their culture from their parents and others in their society.

18. Culture Is Taken for Granted
Culture is deeply embedded in our psyche.
How we act and what we think are often habitual.

19. Monochronic and Polychronic Culture
Monochronic culture
A culture whose people view time in a linear fashion, place great importance on punctuality and keeping on schedule, and prefer to work on one task at a time.
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.

20. Punctuality
North Americans place a high value on punctuality, schedules, and deadlines.

21. Our Bodies and Culture
This Mursi woman from Ethiopia, with her colorful lip and earlobe plates, illustrates the principle that cultural ideas of beauty can affect our bodies.

22. Cultural Change: Two Processes
Internal changes (innovations) - can spread to other cultures and occur in societies with the greatest number of cultural elements.
External changes (cultural diffusion) - spreading of cultural elements from one culture to another. Responsible for the greatest amount of change in any society.

23. Cultural Diffusion
Cultural diffusion, not independent invention, is responsible for the greatest amount of culture change in all societies.

24. diffusion biology enculturation innovation
One of two basic processes of change, _____ refers to internal changes, the ultimate source of all cultural changes.
diffusion
biology
enculturation
innovation

25. Answer: 4
One of two basic processes of change, innovation refers to internal changes, the ultimate source of all cultural changes.

26. A second source of cultural change is _____, or the spread of ideas from one culture to another.
innovation
enculturation
diffusion
biology

27. Answer: 3
A second source of cultural change is diffusion or the spread of ideas from one culture to another.

28. Cultural Universals
Although marriage practices in Africa and the United States differ in many respects, both sets of practices are responses to the universal need to have an orderly system of mating and child rearing.

29. Cultural Universals
Societies share common features because they solve problems shared by all human societies:
Economic system
Systems of marriage and family
Educational system
Social control system
System of supernatural belief
Systems of communication

30. Murdock’s Cultural Universals
Age grading
Etiquette
Inheritance rules
Penal sanctions
Athletics
Faith healing
Joking
Personal names
Bodily adornment
Family
Kinship groups
Population policy
Calendar
Feasting
Kin terminology
Postnatal care
Cleanliness training
Fire making
Language
Pregnancy usages

31. Murdock’s Cultural Universals
Community organization
Folklore
Law
Property rights
Cooking
Food taboos
Luck
Propitiation of
Supernatural beings
Cooperative labor
Funeral rites
Magic
Puberty customs
Cosmology
Games
Marriage
Religious ritual

32. Murdock’s Cultural Universals
Cosmology
Games
Marriage
Religious ritual
Courtship
Gestures
Mealtimes
Residence rules
Dancing
Gift giving
Medicine
Sexual restrictions
Decorative arts
Government
Modesty
Soul concepts
Divination
Greetings
Mourning
Status differentiation

33. Murdock’s Cultural Universals
Division of labor
Ethnobotany
Incest taboos
Penal sanctions
Dream interpretation
Hair styles
Music
Surgery
Education
Hospitality
Mythology
Tool making
Eschatology
Housing
Numerals
Trade
Ethics
Hygiene
Obstetrics
Weaning
Weather control

34. Culture: Adaptive And Maladaptive
Culture is the way humans adapt to their environments so they can survive.
The adaptive nature of culture allows people are able to live in previously uninhabitable places, such as deserts, the polar region, under the sea, and outer space.
Some features of a culture may be maladaptive:
The use of automobiles coupled with industrial pollutants is destroying the air.

35. Organic Analogy
Early functionalist idea that cultural systems are integrated into a whole cultural unit in much the same way that the various parts of a biological organism (such as a respiratory system or circulatory system) function to maintain the health of the organism.

36. cultural universals polytypical features symbols innovations
Despite many differences, all cultures share a number of common features called _____, because they have all worked out a series of solutions to a whole range of problems facing all human societies.
cultural universals
polytypical features
symbols
innovations

37. Answer: 1
Despite many differences, all cultures share a number of common features called cultural universals, because they have all worked out a series of solutions to a whole range of problems facing all human societies.

38. Interconnectedness of the Parts of Culture

39. Small-scale Societies
A small-scale society is a society:
with a small population
that is technologically simple
is usually preliterate
has little labor specialization
is not stratified.

40. Small-scale Societies
A distinction between small-scale and more complex societies does not imply that societies can be pigeonholed into one or the other category.
All societies can be viewed along a continuum from small-scale to complex.