Chapter 2 -Attributes and Characteristics of Culture Flashcards
Culture and Human Agency; Reification of Culture
People are not mere products of their cultures but possess agency, autonomy, and the potential for cultural change.
- Cultural Regulation:
-Culture strongly influences people’s experiences and activities.
-Communities shape their members similarly to how software engineers program computers.
-Cultural regulation maintains communal functioning and mental uniformity among members. - Formation of Personhood:
-Culture contributes to the development of personhood and selves.
-Individuals develop self-understanding, self-regulation, and self-determination.
-The self is the center of a person’s mental life, organizing thoughts, emotions, and actions. - Role of Culture:
-Culture predates individuals’ birth and life.
-Socialization and enculturation appropriate individuals into their communities.
-Alongside socialization, individuals develop unique self-related phenomena, distinguishing humans from animal
Culture and Human Agency; Reification of Culture
Culture regulates people’s experiences and activities through sociocultural models.
Cultural regulation contributes to mental uniformity within communities.
However, Culture also plays a critical role in forming personhood, selves, reflectivity, and autonomous agency.
Culture forms agentic individuals through socialization and enculturation.
Simultaneously, humans develop selves, self-understanding, self-regulation, and self-determination.
The self is the center of experience, reasoning, and action for each person.
What is the first-person perspective and its significance in the emergence of the self?
The first-person perspective is the perceptual and mental view of the world from one’s personal point of view, where the self is the center. It leads to the acquisition of the self and self-awareness.
Define trans-situational self-sameness.
Trans-situational self-sameness is the experience of being the same coherent and understanding individual across various events, situations, and happenings.
What is self-determination?
Self-determination refers to the deliberate, reflective activity of framing, choosing, and executing actions based on one’s own understanding and reasoning, rather than complete dependency on sociocultural models.
Explain the reflective capacity of the self.
The reflective capacity of the self, also known as the “Me-self,” is the propensity of individuals to become an object to themselves, allowing them to observe their behaviors, reflect on their personality and abilities, set goals, and regulate their behavior accordingly.
What is meant by self-regulation of human behavior?
Self-regulation of human behavior refers to the processes through which individuals understand their wants, set goals, plan, manage their actions, and work towards achieving their goals based on their reflective self-assessment.
How does the existence of the self contribute to cultural consciousness and autonomy?
The existence of the self, with its agentive and reflective aspects, enables individuals to reflect on cultural factors and conditions, become conscious and critical of sociocultural regulations, and develop relative independence from them, leading to cultural changes and autonomy.
What role does culture play in regulating people’s experiences and activities?
Culture regulates people’s experiences and activities, programming them similarly to how software engineers program computers. This regulation contributes to communal functioning and mental uniformity within communities.
How does culture contribute to the formation of personhood and autonomous agency?
Culture contributes to the formation of personhood, individuals’ selves, reflectivity, and autonomous agency. It does so by providing sociocultural models that individuals internalize through socialization and enculturation processes.
What are some unique attributes of the human self?
The human self is characterized by self-understanding, self-regulation, and self-determination. These self-related phenomena are uniquely human attributes that animals do not possess.
Define the self in the context of human experience.
The self, or “I-self,” is the center of experience, reasoning, and action from the perspective of a functioning person. It serves as the pivotal point around which individuals’ thoughts, emotions, and actions are organized.
What is culture reification?
Culture reification occurs when culture, as a product of collective human activity, is perceived as an external reality with its own nature, laws, and powers beyond human control. It entails the apprehension of human phenomena as non-human or supra-human entities.
Provide an example of culture reification.
An example of culture reification is when social scientists or journalists attribute “culture of corruption” as a causal factor in white-collar crimes, presenting it as an external determinant beyond human control, rather than acknowledging its complex dialectical relations with its producers.
How did sociologists Berger and Luckmann describe the concept of reification?
Sociologists Berger and Luckmann described reification as the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were non-human or supra-human entities, implying forgetting human authorship of the human world and losing consciousness of the dialectic between man, the producer, and his products.
What are the consequences of culture reification?
The consequences of culture reification include dehumanizing the world, creating a sense of alienation from one’s own productive activity, and hindering the understanding of culture’s role in organizing communal and individual lives.
What are the consequences of culture reification for people’s living?
Culture reification alienates people from the cultures they produce and maintain, implying that they are powerless victims of cultural forces beyond their control. This dehumanizes individuals by stripping them of their agency to produce, maintain, and change their sociocultural environments.
How does culture reification affect research?
Culture reification creates an illusion that culture can be studied similarly to natural or physical entities, leading to a loss of understanding of culture’s interactive, dynamic, intentional, and intersubjective nature. This results in the disappearance of culture as a socio-symbolic phenomenon and hinders research in social sciences and psychology.
What is the impact of culture reification on discussions within social sciences and psychology?
Discussions about culture reification and its consequences are intense within social sciences and psychology. Researchers in these fields recognize the dangers of reifying culture and essentializing cultural categories, and some strive to maintain the social and interactive nature of culture in their research programs.
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What is the problem of cultural universalism versus cultural relativism?
The problem of cultural universalism versus cultural relativism concerns whether people are psychologically the same across different cultural communities or if each community shapes its own psychological makeup regarding cognition, motivations, personality, emotions, and behaviors.
Define cultural universalism.
Cultural universalism posits that people are psychologically the same across different cultural communities, sharing a common set of psychological processes, states, and goals, along with basic needs. It emphasizes the existence of “human universals.”
Describe the perspective of cultural universalists.
Cultural universalists believe that people worldwide share common psychological characteristics and behaviors, such as learning, forming families, experiencing emotions, and participating in social institutions like religion and governance. They aim to discover psychological universals and study variations across cultures.
What is the goal of cross-cultural psychology in relation to cultural universalism?
The goal of cross-cultural psychology, which supports cultural universalism, is to identify psychological universals and understand how external factors contribute to variations in their manifestations across cultures.
Define cultural relativism.
Cultural relativism asserts that people’s psychological makeup is shaped by their socio-symbolic environment, meaning their thoughts, values, emotions, and behaviors depend on what they learn and internalize in their communities. Each community develops the psychological makeup of its members according to its sociocultural models.
Describe the perspective of cultural relativists.
Cultural relativists believe that people’s perceptions, values, emotions, and behaviors are culturally relative and unique to their respective communities. They emphasize the importance of studying cultures in their own contexts and focus on the diversity of psychological makeup across cultures.
What is the goal of cultural psychology according to cultural relativists?
According to cultural relativists, the goal of cultural psychology is to focus on the uniqueness of cultures and the psychological makeup of their members. They strive to understand psychological diversity from the perspective of cultural contexts.
Who coined the concept of “the psychic unity of mankind”?
German anthropologist Adolf Bastian (1826-1905) coined the concept of “the psychic unity of mankind” during the early period of modern anthropology.
