Chapter 2: Culture

Question 1

Culture

Answer 1

The language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and even material objects that characterize a group and are passed from one generation to the next.

Question 2

Material culture

Answer 2

The material objects that distinguish a group of people, such as their art, buildings, weapons, utensils, machines, hairstyles, clothing, and jewelry

Question 3

Nonmaterial culture

Answer 3

A group’s ways of thinking (including its beliefs, values, and other assumptions about the world) and doing (its common patterns of behavior, including language and other forms of interaction); also called symbolic culture

Question 4

Culture shock

Answer 4

The disorientation that people experience when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life.

Question 5

Ethnocentrism

Answer 5

The use of one’s own culture as a yardstick for judging the ways of other individuals or societies, generally leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms, behaviors, and beliefs.

Question 6

Cultural relativism

Answer 6

not judging a culture but trying to understand it on its own terms

Question 7

Symbolic culture

Answer 7

Another term for nonmaterial culture

Question 8

symbol

Answer 8

Something to which people attach meaning and then use to communicate with one another

Question 9

Gestures

Answer 9

The ways in which people use their bodies to communicate with one another

Question 10

Language

Answer 10

A system of symbols that can be combined in an infinite number of ways and can represent no only objects but also abstract thought

Question 11

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Answer 11

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf’s hypothesis that language creates ways of thinking and perceiving.

Question 12

Values

Answer 12

The standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable, superior or inferior, good or bad, beautiful or ugly.

Question 13

Norms

Answer 13

Expectations of “right” behavior

Question 14

Sanctions

Answer 14

Either expressions of approval given to people for following norms or expressions of disapproval for violating them.

Question 15

Positive sanction

Answer 15

A reward or positive reaction for following norms, ranging from a smile to a material reward

Question 16

Negative sanction

Answer 16

An expression of disapproval for breaking a norm, ranging from a mild, informal reaction, such as a frown, to a formal reaction such as a prize or a prison sentence.

Question 17

Folkways

Answer 17

Norms that are not strictly enforced

Question 18

Mores

Answer 18

Norms that are strictly enforced because they are thought essential to core values or the wellbeing of the group

Question 19

taboo

Answer 19

A norm so strong that it brings extreme sanctions, even revulsion, if violated

Question 20

Subculture

Answer 20

The values and related behaviors of a group that distinguish its members from the larger culture, a world within a world

Question 21

Counterculture

Answer 21

A group whose values, beliefs, norms, and related behaviors place its members in opposition to the broader culture.

Question 22

Pluralistic society

Answer 22

A society made up of many different groups

Question 23

Core values

Answer 23

the values that are central to a group, those around which a group builds a common identity

Question 24

Value cluster

Answer 24

Values that together form a larger whole

Question 25

Value contradiction

Answer 25

Values that contradict one another; to follow the one means to come into conflict with the other.

Question 26

ideal culture

Answer 26

a people’s ideal values and norms; to goals held out for them.

Question 27

real culture

Answer 27

the norms and values that people actually follow; as opposed to ideal culture

Question 28

Cultural universal

Answer 28

A value, norm, or other cultural trait that is found in every group

Question 29

Sociology

Answer 29

A framework of thought in which human behavior is considered to be the result of natural selection and biological factors: a fundamental cause of human behavior.

Question 30

Technology

Answer 30

in its narrow sense, tools; its broader sense includes the skills or procedures necessary to make and use those tools.

Question 31

New technology

Answer 31

The emerging technologies of an era that have a significant impact on social life.

Question 32

Cultural lag

Answer 32

Ogburn’s term for human behavior lagging behind technological innovations

Question 33

Cultural diffusion

Answer 33

The spread of cultural traits from one group to another; includes both material and nonmaterial cultural traits

Question 34

Cultural leveling

Answer 34

The process by which cultures become similar to one another, refers especially to the process by which Western culture is being exported and diffused into other nations.