6 Social Organization - Culture Flashcards
List and explain the three ways that individualist and collectivist cultures differ.
1) Conception of the self - Individualists define the self as an autonomous entity independent of groups, Collectivists define the self in terms of its connectedness to others in various in-groups
2) Personal vs Group goals - Personal goals have priority over group goals in individualism; Personal goals are subordinated to the collective goals in collectivism
3) Relationships vs. Accomplishments - Individualists are more oriented toward task achievement, sometimes at the expense of relationships. Collectivists put more emphasis on harmonious relationships, sometimes at the expense of task accomplishment
What is a symbol?
Something that stands for something else
What is culture?
The sum total of systems of symbols in a given population
What do symbols allow us (humans) to do in reference to ‘time’?
Large systems of symbols allow people to remember the past, make sense of the present in sophisticated ways, and anticipate the future. In other words, we can symbolically understand “time” and mentally separate the past, present, and future. This is a relatively unique ability among living creatures.
How does culture fulfill biological, instrumental, and integrative needs?
Biological needs - culture helps keep us healthy by informing medical and dietary practices. Nobody is born knowing how to treat an illness or how to properly prepare meat for eating.
Instrumental needs - culture provides laws and rules that provide order and structure to society. Culture also provides educational practices that allow modern societies to flourish.
Integrative needs - Culture provides numerous ways to meet our social needs, such as the arts, religion, community organizations, etc.
Explain how culture both enables us, but also constrains us.
Culture enables us because we don’t have to reinvent/rediscover cultural knowledge. It is there for us to use, even if we don’t fully understand it. For example, you are using a computer right now, but I doubt that many of you know how to build a computer from scratch without cultural input.
Culture constrains us because we are only subjected to a limited subset of cultural information. We all view the world somewhat differently because we have been exposed to different cultural information.
How does the complexity of language available impact social organization?
The more complexity available in the language, the more complex society can be. For example, consider how much cultural information has been lost throughout human history before written language was invented. The ability to store information outside the human brain allows for more information to be retained and thus used to shape society.
Explain the saphir-whorf hypothesis.
Language determines thinking. Thus, someone who speaks Spanish must think differently than someone who only speaks English.
What systems of symbols make up our culture?
Languages, technology, values, beliefs, norms, stocks of knowledge
What is the relationship between values and beliefs regarding human behavior?
Our values impact what we believe. Widely shared ideas about right and wrong influence ideas about what is factual.
What is the relationship between values and norms regarding human behavior?
Our values influence social norms. For example, Americans were much less likely than many other countries to establish norms of mask-wearing during COVID because it infringed on the widely shared value of individual freedom.
Define ‘subculture’ and ‘ethnocentrism’.
Subculture - Subpopulations within a society hold (some) different beliefs, values, and/or norms.
Ethnocentrism - The tendency to view one’s own culture or subculture as superior
What are the two major trends in understanding present-day culture(s)?
Expansion of the media - Thus, more and more people are being exposed to others’ cultures.
Globalization - Increasing interconnectedness of nations’ economies
What is cultural relativism?
Evaluating a culture based on its norms and values instead of using your values to judge another culture.
