The Concept of Culture

Meaning and Nature of Culture

It was E.B. Taylor who conceptualized the definition of culture in the 1860s. According to him, culture is a complex whole which
consist of knowledge, beliefs, ideas, habits, attitudes, skills, abilities, values, norms, art, law, morals, customs, traditions,
feelings and other capabilities of man which are acquired, learned and socially transmitted by man from one generation to
another through language and living together as members of the society (Arcinas, 2016).

Below are other definitions of culture as mentioned in the book of David and Macaraeg (2010) entitled“ Sociology: Exploring
Society and Culture”:

Culture is a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in
symbolic form by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards
life. – Clifford Geertz

Culture consists of learned systems of meaning, communicated by means of natural language and other symbol systems, having
representational, directive, and affective functions, and capable of creating cultural entities and particular senses of reality. –
Roy D’Andrade

Culture is an extrasomatic (nongenetic,non bodily), temporal continuum of things and events dependent upon symbols. Culture
consists of tools, implements, utensils, clothing, ornaments, customs, institutions, beliefs, rituals, games, works of art, language,
etc. – Leslie White

Culture consists in the shared patterns of behavior and associated meanings that people learn and participate in within the
groups to which they belong. – Whitten and Hunter

A society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its
members. – Ward Goodenough

Culture is an instrumental reality, and apparatus for the satisfaction of the biological and derived need”. It is the integral whole
consisting of implements in consumers’ goods, of constitutional characters for the
various social groupings, of human ideas and crafts, beliefs and custom. – Malinowski

Culture in general as a descriptive concept means the accumulated treasury of human creation: books, paintings, buildings, and
the like; the knowledge of ways of adjusting to our surroundings, both human and physical; language, customs, and systems of
etiquette, ethics, religion and morals that have been built up through the ages. – Kluckhohn and Kelly

Culture refers to that part of the total setting [of human existence] which includes the material objects of human manufacture,
techniques, social orientations, points of view, and sanctioned ends that are the immediate conditioning factors underlying
behavior or in simple terms it is the “man made part of the environment. – Herskovits

A culture is the total socially acquired life-way or life-style of a group of people. It consists of the patterned, repetitive ways of
thinking, feeling, and acting that are characteristic of the members of a particular society or segment of a society. – Harris

The concept of culture as everything that people have, thinks, and does as members of a society. This definition can be
instructive because the three verbs correspond to the three major components of culture. That is, everything that people have
refers to material possessions; everything that people think refers to those things they carry around in their heads, such as
ideas, values, and attitudes; and everything that people do refers to behavior patterns. Thus all cultures comprise (a) material
objects, (b) ideas, values, and attitudes, and (c) patterned ways of behaving. – Gary Ferraro

In general, culture is a term used by social scientists, like anthropologists and sociologists, to encompass all the facets of human
experience that extend beyond our physical fact. It simply refers to the way we understand ourselves both as individuals and as
members of society, and includes stories, religion, media, rituals, and even language itself. Irrespective of the various
definitions, conceptions and approaches to the understanding of the concept of culture, it is however agreed that culture is a
way of life and morality is a part of culture. Practically all modern definitions share key features.
Characteristics of Culture
1. Dynamic, flexible and adaptive
- Culture necessarily changes, and is changed by a variety of interactions, with
individuals, media, and technology, just to name a few.
- Cultures interact and change. Most societies interact with other societies, and as a
consequence their cultures interact that lead to exchanges of material (ex: tools and
furniture) and non-material (ex: ideas and symbols) components of culture.
- All cultures change, or else, they would have problems adjusting and adapting to
changing environments.
- Culture is adaptive and dynamic, once we recognize problems, culture can adapt again,
in a more positive way, to find solutions.
- We need our cultural skills to stay alive.

2. Shared and maybe challenged-

(Given the reality of social differentiation), as we share culture with others, we are able
to act in appropriate ways as well as predict how others will act. Despite the shared
nature of culture, that doesn’t mean that culture is homogeneous (the
same).
- It may be challenged by the presence of other cultures and other social forces in
society like modernization, industrialization, and globalization.

3. Learned through socialization or enculturation

- Culture is not biological, people do not inherit it but learn to interact in society. Much
of learning culture is unconscious. People learn, absorb and acquire culture from
families, friends, institutions, and the media. The process of learning culture is
Enculturation.

4. Patterned social interactions

- Culture as a normative system has the capacity to define and control human behaviors.
- Norms (for example) are cultural expectations in terms of how one will think, feel, or
behave as set by one’s culture. It sets the patterns in terms of what is appropriate or
inappropriate in a given setting.
- Human interactions are guided by some forms of standards and expectations which in
the end regularize it.

5. Transmitted through socialization or enculturation

- As we share our culture with others, we are able to pass it on to the new members of
society or the younger generation in different ways.

6. Requires language and other forms of communication

- In the process of learning and transmitting culture, symbols and language are needed
to communicate with others in society (Arcinas, 2016).
Importance/Functions of Culture
From the Perspective of Anthropological Perspective
1. Learned
- Culture is learned, as each person must learn how to “be” a member of that culture
- Culture is acquired by being born into a particular society in the process of enculturation. Through language, the cultural traits
of society are passed on to younger members in the process of growing up and through teaching.
- Every human generation potentially can discover new things and invent better technologies. The new cultural skills and
knowledge are added onto what was learned in previous generations.

2. Symbolic
- Culture is symbolic, as it based on the manipulation of symbols
- Culture renders meaning to what people do. Beliefs, religion, rituals, myths, dances, performances, music, artworks, sense of
taste, education, innovations, identity, ethnicity, and so on are meaningful human expressions of what people do and how they
act.

3. Systemic and integrated

- Culture is systemic and integrated as the parts of culture work together in an integrated whole.
- The systems of meanings and many other facets (sides) of culture such as kindred, religion, economic activities, inheritance,
and political process, do not function in isolation but as an integrated whole that makes society work.
- These varying systems of meanings,relations. And processes are shared within a group of people rendering culture bound to
those who seek a sense of belonging to the same society.

4. Shared
- Culture is shared, as it offers all people ideas about behavior
- Since culture is shared within exclusive domains of social relations, societies operate differently from each other leading to
cultural variations. Even though culture is bounded, it does not mean that there are no variations in how people act and relate
with each other within a given system of their respective societies. On the contrary, the same society can be broadly diverse
wherein people, for example, profess connections to each other yet practice different religion, values, or gender relations.
- Societies do not always exist independently from each other.

5. Encompassing
- Culture covers every feature of humanity. Around the world, people as members of their own societies establish connections
with each other and form relationship guided by their respective
- In the process of socialization/enculturation, we were able to teach.them about many things in life and equip them with the
culturally.acceptable ways of surviving,.competing, and making meaningful.interaction with others in society.cultural practices
and values.
- Edward Tylor defines culture as a.complex whole which encompasses.beliefs, practices, traits, values,.attitudes, laws, norms,
artifacts,.symbols, knowledge, and everything that a person learns and shares as a member of society (David and Macaraeg,
2010).

Sociologists recognize and regard culture as one of the most important concepts within sociology because it plays a vital role in
our social lives. It is essential for shaping social relationships, maintaining and challenging social order,determining how we
make sense of the world and our place in it, and in shaping our everyday actions and experiences in society. Moreover, culture
is important to sociologists because it plays a significant and important role in the production of social order. The social order
refers to the stability of society based on the collective agreement to rules and norms that allow us to cooperate, function as a
society, and live together (ideally) in peace and harmony (Cole, 2019).
In the book of (David and Macaraeg, 2010), the following functions of culture
were given emphasis:
(1) it serves as the “trademark” of the people in the society;
(2)it gives meaning and direction to one’s existence;
(3) it promotes meaning to individual's existence;
(4) it predicts social behavior;
(5) it unifies diverse behavior;
(6) it provides social solidarity;
(7) it establishes social personality;
(8) it provides systematic behavioral pattern;
(9) it provides social structure category;
(10) it maintains the biologic functioning of the group;
(11) it offers ready-made solution to man’s material and immaterial problems; and
(12) it develops man’s attitude and values and gives him a conscience.
Elements of Culture

1. Symbols refer to anything that is used to stand for something else. It is anything that gives meaning to the
culture. People who share a culture often attach a specific meaning to an object, gesture, sound, or image. An
example of which are the feasts we are celebrating. Those particular events give a representation of a
particular culture. Even the meanings we provide to things such as colors and graphic symbols provide
understanding which is common to a certain group of people (David and Macaraeg, 2010). For instance, a
cross is a significant symbol to Christians. It is not simply two pieces of wood attached to each other, nor is it
just an old object of torture and execution. To Christians, it represents the basis of their entire religion, and
they have great reverence for the symbol.

2. Language is known as the storehouse of culture ( Arcinas, 2016). It is a system of words and symbols used
to communicate with other people. We have a lot of dialects in the Philippines that provide a means of
understanding. Through these, culture is transmitted to future generations through learning (David and
Macaraeg, 2010).

3. Technology refers to the application of knowledge and equipment to ease the task of living and
maintaining the environment; it includes artifacts, methods and devices created and used by people (Arcinas,
2016).

4. Values are culturally defined standards for what is good or desirable. Values determine how individuals
will probably respond in any given circumstances. Members of the culture use the shared system of values to
decide what is good and what is bad. This also refers to the abstract concept of what is important and
worthwhile (Davidand Macaraeg, 2010). What is considered as good, proper and desirable, or bad, improper
or undesirable, in a culture can be called as values (Arcinas, 2016). It influences people’s behavior and serves
as a benchmark for evaluating the actions of others. Majority of the Philippine population is bonded together
by common values and traits that are first taught at home and being applied in our day to day lives. Filipinos
are known for the following values: (a) compassionate; (b) spirit of kinship and camaraderie; (c) hardwork
and industry; (d) ability to survive; (e) faith and religiosity; (f) flexibility, adaptability and creativity; (g) joy and
humor; (h) family orientation; (i) hospitality; and (j) pakikipagkapwa-tao.

5. Beliefs refers to the faith of an individual ( David and Macaraeg, 2010). They are conceptions or ideas
people have about what is true in the environment around them like what is life, how to value it and how
one’s belief on the value of life relates with his or her interaction with others and the world. These may be
based on common sense, folk wisdom, religion, science or a combination of all of these (Arcinas, 2016).

6. Norms are specific rules/standards to guide for appropriate behavior (Arcinas, 2016). These are societal
expectations that mandate specific behaviors in specific situations (David and Macaraeg, 2010). Like in
school, we are expected to behave in a particular way. If we violate norms, we look different. Thus, we can be
called social deviants. For example, Filipino males are expected to wear pants, not skirts and females are
expected to have long hair, not a short one like that of males. Social norms are indeed very essential in
understanding the nature of man’s social relationship. They are of different types and forms According to
Palispis (2007), as mentioned by Baleña (2016), in the social interaction process, each member possesses
certain expectations about the responses of another member.

Therefore, it is very important to determine the different forms of societal norms.

Types:
a. Proscriptive norm defines and tells us things not to do
b. Prescriptive norm defines and tells us things to do
Forms:
a. Folkways are also known as customs (customary/repetitive ways of doing things); they are forms of norms for
everyday behavior that people follow for the sake of tradition or convenience. Breaking them does not usually
have serious consequences. We have certain customs that were passed on by our forebears that make up a large
part of our day to day existence and we do not question their practicality. Since they are being practiced, it is
expected that we do them also. For example, we Filipinos eat with our bare hands.

b. Mores are strict norms that control moral and ethical behavior; they are based on definitions of right and wrong
(Arcinas, 2016). They are norms also but with moral undertones (David and Macaraeg, 2010). For example, since
our country Philippines is a Christian nation, we are expected to practice monogamous marriage. So if a person
who has two or more partners is looked upon as immoral. Polygamy is considered taboo in Philippine society.

c. Laws are controlled ethics and they are morally agreed, written down and enforced by an official law
enforcement agency (Arcinas, 2016). They are institutionalized norms and mores that were enacted by the state to
ensure stricter punishment in order for the people to adhere to the standards set by society (David and Macaraeg,
2010).

Two Components of Culture

Sociologists describe two interrelated aspects of human culture: the physical objects of the culture (material
culture) and the ideas associated with these objects (non-material culture).

1. Material culture consists of tangible things (Banaag, 2012). It refers to the physical objects, resources, and
spaces that people use to define their culture. These include homes, neighborhoods, cities, schools, churches,
synagogues, temples, mosques, offices, factories and plants, tools, means of production, goods and products,
stores, and so forth. All of these physical aspects of a culture help to define its members' behaviors and
perceptions.

Everything that is created, produced, changed and utilized by men is included in the material culture (Arcinas,
2016).

2. Non-material culture consists of intangible things (Banaag, 2012). Non‐material culture refers to the nonphysical ideas
that people have about their culture, including beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals, language, organizations, and
institutions. For instance, the non‐material cultural concept of religion consists of a set of ideas and beliefs about God,
worship, morals, and ethics. These beliefs, then, determine how the culture responds to its religious topics, issues, and
events. When considering non‐material culture, sociologists refer to several processes that a culture uses to shape its
members' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Four of the most important of these are symbols, language, values, and
norms. Non-material culture can be categorized into cognitive and normative culture. The former includes ideas,
concepts, philosophies, designs etc. that are products of mental or intellectual functioning and reasoning of the human
mind. Whereas, the latter includes all expectations, standards and rules for human behavior (Arcinas, 2016).

Modes of Acquiring Culture

1. Imitation - Children and adults alike have the tendency to imitate the values, attitudes, language and all other
things in their social environment. Some of those things imitated are internalized in their personality and become a
part of their attitude, character and other behavioral patterns.

2. Indoctrination or Suggestion - This may take the form of formal training or informal teaching. Formally, the
person learns from school. Informally, he may acquire those behaviors from listening or watching, reading,
attending training activities or through interaction.

3. Conditioning - The values, beliefs, and attitudes of other people are acquired through conditioning. This
conditioning can be reinforced through reward and punishment.
Adaptation of Culture
1. Parallelism means that the same culture may take place in two or more different places.
Example: The domestication of dogs, cats, pigs and other animals may have semblance in other places

2. Diffusion refers to those behavioral patterns that pass back and forth from one culture to another. This is the transfer or
spread of culture traits from one another brought about by change agents such as people or media
Examples: food and eating practices, marriage and wedding ceremonies, burial rituals, feast celebrations

3. Convergence takes place when two or more cultures are fused or merged into one culture making it different from the
original culture.

4. Fission takes place when people break away from their original culture and start developing a different culture of their own.

5. Acculturation refers to the process wherein individuals incorporate the behavioral patterns of other cultures into their own
either voluntarily or by force. Voluntary acculturation occurs through imitation, borrowing, or personal contact with other
people.

6. Assimilation occurs when the culture of a larger society is adopted by a smaller society, that smaller society assumes some of
the culture of the larger society or cost society.

7. Accommodation occurs when the larger society and smaller society are able to respect and tolerate each other’s culture
even if there is already a prolonged contact with each other’s culture.

Causes of Cultural Change

1. Discovery is the process of finding a new place or an object, artifact or anything that previously existed. For example, the
discovery of fire led to the art of cooking; discovery of oil, of organisms and substances; of diseases; of atoms and sources of
energy.

2. Invention implies a creative mental process of devising, creating and producing something new, novel or original; and also
the utilization and combination of previously known elements to produce that original or novel product. It could be either social
or material or it could also be the invention of new methods or techniques.
Example of social invention: invention of number system, government, language, democracy, religion, and alphabet
Example of Material Invention: invention of the wheel, machines

3. Diffusion is the spread of cultural traits or social practices from a society or group to another belonging to the same society
or to another through direct contact with each other and exposure to new forms. It involves the following

Social Processes:
a. Acculturation – cultural borrowing and cultural imitation
Example: The Filipinos are said to be the best English Speaking people of Asia.

b. Assimilation – the blending or fusion of two distinct cultures through long periods of interaction
Example: Americanization of Filipino immigrants to the US

c. Amalgamation – the biological or hereditary fusion of members of different societies

Example: Marriage between a Filipino and an American

d. Enculturation – the deliberate infusion of a new culture to another

Example: The teaching of American history and culture to the Filipinos during the early American Regime

4. Colonization refers to the political, social, and political policy of establishing a colony which would be subject to the rule or
governance of the colonizing state.
For example, the Hispanization of Filipino culture when the Spaniards came and conquered the Philippines.

5. Rebellion and revolutionary movements aim to change the whole social order and replace the leadership. The challenge the
existing folkways and mores, and propose a new scheme of norms, values and organization
Ethnocentrism, Xenocentrism and Cultural Relativism as Orientationsin
Viewing Other Cultures

Cultural variation is the differences in social behaviors that different cultures exhibit around the world. What may
be considered good etiquette in one culture may be considered bad etiquette in another. In relation to this, there
are important perceptions on cultural variability: ethnocentrism, xenocentrism and cultural relativism.

Ethnocentrism is a perception that arises from the fact that cultures differ and each culture defines reality
differently. This happens when judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture
(Baleña, et.al,2016). This is the tendency to see and evaluate other cultures in terms of one’s own race, nation or
culture. This is the feeling or belief that one’s culture is better than the rest.

Whereas, xenocentrism is the opposite of ethnocentrism, the belief that one’s culture is inferior compared to
others. People are highly influenced by the culture or many cultures outside the realm of their society. This could
be one of the effects of globalization. Exposure to cultural practices of others may make one individual or group of
individuals to give preference to the ideas, lifestyle and products of other cultures.

Cultural relativism is an attempt to judge behavior according to its cultural context (Baleña, et.al,2016). It is a
principle that an individual person’s beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that
individual’s own culture. This concept emphasizes the perspective that no culture is superior to any other culture
(Arcinas, 2016) because

(a) different societies have different moral code;

(b) the moral code of a society determines what is right or wrong within the society;
(c) there are no moral truths that hold for all people at all times;
(d) the moral code of our own society has no special status, it is but one among many;
(e) it is arrogant for us to judge other cultures, so we have to be tolerant of them.

Other Important Terms Related to Culture

1. Cultural diversity refers to the differentiation of culture all over the world which means there is no right or
wrong culture but there is appropriate culture for the needs of a specific group of people.

2. Subculture refers to a smaller group within a larger culture.

3. Counterculture refers to cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society (example
in the 1960”s counter culture among teenagers reflect long hair, blue jeans, peace sign, rock and roll music and
drug abuse).

4. Culture lag is experienced when some parts of the society do not change as fast as with other parts and they are
left behind

5. Culture shock is the inability to read meaning in one’s surroundings, feeling of loss and isolation, unsure to act
as a consequence of being outside the symbolic web of culture that binds others.

6. Ideal culture refers to the social patterns mandated by cultural values and Norms.

7. Real culture refers to the actual patterns that only approximate cultural Expectations.

8. High culture refers to the cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite

9. Popular culture refers to the cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population.

10.Culture change is the manner by which culture evolves.