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Lecture 3 Culture

Culture shapes our perceptions and interactions, comprising both tangible and intangible elements. It evolves over time, with cultural universals existing alongside unique expressions across societies. Social norms, values, beliefs, customs, and symbols play crucial roles in defining and transmitting culture.

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3 views

Lecture 3 Culture

Culture shapes our perceptions and interactions, comprising both tangible and intangible elements. It evolves over time, with cultural universals existing alongside unique expressions across societies. Social norms, values, beliefs, customs, and symbols play crucial roles in defining and transmitting culture.

Uploaded by

malik2912112
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Culture

Why Is Culture Important?

• Culture determines how we see and interact with the world


• Some aspects of culture are universal
• Many aspects of culture are not universal
• How we view our culture in relation to others affects our
interactions with others
• Culture changes over time and varies, even within larger cultures
Introduction to culture

• What is culture?
• Intangible things like beliefs and thoughts,
expectations
• Tangible things like objects, buildings,
infrastructure
• Material Culture
• Objects or belongings of a group
• Clothing, hairstyles, school buildings
• Non-Material Culture
• Ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society
• Often represent/ reflect material culture
Intro to cultural similarities and
differences
• Culture- represents the beliefs, practices and artifacts of a group
• Society- represents the social structures and organization of the
people who share those beliefs and practices

• Cultural Universals- patterns or traits that are globally


common to all societies (example: family unit, weddings, funeral
rites, birth celebrations, language, names, jokes)
• These commonalities very in expression
• Music: conveys basic emotions of happiness, sadness, fear
Introduction to Pop Culture, Subculture, and
Cultural Change
• High Culture
• Pattern of cultural experiences and
attitudes in the highest class segments of a
society
• Often associated with intellectualism,
political power, and prestige
• Wealth: expensive, formal events are high
culture
• Pop Culture
• More accessible, mainstream
• TV “top 20s”, radio, internet memes
• The pop culture of old can fall into obscurity
and become high culture or niche
Cultural change
• Cultural change: culture is always evolving, materially
and non-materially
• When something new opens up new ways of living
and when new ideas first enter a culture
• Innovation: Discovery and Invention
• Innovation: involves an object or concept’s initial
appearance in society; it’s new! It’s invented or
discovered
• Discoveries make known previously unknown but
existing aspects of reality (Examples: science and
exploration)
• Inventions result when something new is formed from
existing objects or concepts—things are put together
in an entirely new manner
Cultural change, cont.

• Culture lag is the time that elapses between the


introduction of a new item of material culture and its
acceptance as part of nonmaterial culture
• Unforeseen consequences, too:
• Infrastructural deficiencies
• Pollution and fuel consumption
• Cost prohibitive market may leave working poor
behind
Think About It: Culture Shock

• Think about where you grew up. What were some of the folkways you took
for granted as a child? Have you ever traveled to another country and
experienced “culture shock” when folkways of different cultures differed
from your own?
Social Norms

• Invisible rule for conduct, norms tell us how to behave according


to what society tells us what is right, good, important
• Most people follow them
• Formal norms: established, written rules agreed upon
• Informal norms: casual behaviors people generally conform to
(much like behavioral scripts)
• Breaching experiments reveal our discomfort when people don’t follow
these
Values and Beliefs
• Values: the standard for discerning goodness, justice

• Deeply embedded, essential for transmitting and


teaching cultural beliefs
• Shape society by suggesting what’s good/bad,
sought/avoided, ugly/beautiful, etc.
• Values portray an ideal culture, the standards society
would like to embrace and live up to
• Real culture, the way society actually is, based on
what occurs and exists, differs from ideal
• Rewards, sanctions (permission), and punishments
enact values
• Values are not static
• Beliefs: Tenets and convictions people hold
Custom

• In sociology, a custom is a traditional, widely


accepted, and patterned way of behaving that is
characteristic of a specific society.
• E.g. Greetings, dressing style, Rituals, Ceremonies etc
Mores

• Norms further broken down


• Mores are norms that embody the moral views and principles of a
group
• Violating them can have serious consequences
• Guarded by public sentiment: shame, shunning, banning result from violations
Symbols and Language

• Symbols: gestures, signs, objects, signals, and words—help


people understand their world, convey recognizable meanings
shared by societies
• Material and nonmaterial culture– An object may represent an idea
and convey important cultural meanings (wedding rings, trophies,
stop signs, etc.)
• Destruction of symbols also conveys cultural meaning
• Language: symbolic system through which people communicate,
culture is transmitted
• Language is a common symbol to all cultures,
no matter how it is conveyed (verbal, written,
non-verbal)
• People experience their world through their language, and
understand their world through the culture embedded in their
language, which evolves constantly
• Also called linguistic relativity

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