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Learn about the concept of culture, its components, and how it is acquired. Discover the shared meanings, subcultures, and the impact of cultural change.
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Chapter 2 The Concept of Culture
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?
Culture Defined • Everything people have • material possessions • Everything people think • ideas, values, and attitudes • Everything people do • behavior patterns
Culture • According to the anthropological perspective, this Australian aboriginal man playing the dijeridoo has as much culture as world famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Question 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.
Answer: c • For this text, culture is defined as everything that people have, think, and do as members of society.
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
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.
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.
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.
Culture Shock • A psychological disorientation experienced when attempting to operate in a radically different cultural environment.
Subculture • A subdivision of a national culture that shares some features with the larger society and also differs in some important respects.
Pluralistic Societies • Societies composed of a number of different cultural or subcultural groups.
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.
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.
Culture is Learned • Children learn their culture from their parents and others in their society.
Culture Is Taken for Granted • Culture is deeply embedded in our psyche. • How we act and what we think are often habitual.
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.
Punctuality • North Americans place a high value on punctuality, schedules, and deadlines.
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.
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.
Cultural Diffusion • Cultural diffusion, not independent invention, is responsible for the greatest amount of culture change in all societies.
Question • One of two basic processes of change, ________ refers to internal changes, the ultimate source of all cultural changes. • diffusion • biology • enculturation • innovation
Answer: d • One of two basic processes of change, innovation refers to internal changes, the ultimate source of all cultural changes.
Question • A second source of cultural change is ________, or the spread of ideas from one culture to another. • innovation • enculturation • diffusion • biology
Answer: c • A second source of cultural change is diffusion or the spread of ideas from one culture to another.
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.
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
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.
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.
Question • 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
Answer: a • 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.
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.
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.
