Ch. 3 Flashcards
What is Culture?
The totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. It includes the ideas, values, and artifacts of groups of people.
What is Society?
A fairly large number of people who live in the same territory, are relatively, independent, of people outside their area, and participate in a common culture.
What is Sociobiology?
The systematic study of how biology affects human social behavior.
What is Cultural Universal?
A common practice or belief found in every culture.
What is Ethnocentrism?
The tendency to assume that one’s own culture is and way of life represents the norm or superior to all others.
What is Cultural Relativism?
The viewing of other people’s behavior from the perspective of one’s own culture.
What is Cultural Capital?
Non-economic goods, such as family background and education, which are reflected in a knowledge of language and the arts.
What is Language?
An abstract system of word meanings and symbols for all aspects of culture. Includes speech, written characters, numerals, symbols, and non-verbal gestures and expressions.
What are Symbols?
in context of language and communication
Gestures, objects, and words that form the basis of human communication.
What are Norms?
The established standards of behavior maintained by a society.
What are Formal Norms?
A norm that has been written down and that specifies strict punishment for violators.
What are Informal Norms?
A norm that is generally understood but not precisely recorded.
What is Innovation?
The process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture through discovery or invention.
What is an Invention?
The combination of existing cultural items into a form that did not exist before.
Norms are classified by their relative importance to society. What are the 2 ways Sociologists classify them?
Mores (pronounced mor-ays) and Folkways
