Chapter 3-Culture Flashcards
Social construction of reality
Ongoing interdependent relationship within which individuals create society through our actions and becomes products of the society we construct
Culture
Totality of shared language, knowledge, material objects, behavior, and social interaction
Society
Structure of relationships within which culture is created and shared through regularized patterns of social interaction, cross-cultural variation
Culture universals
Common practices and beliefs shared by all societies
Sociobiology
Systematic study of how biology affects human behavior and looks at cultural universals from a biological perspective
Innovation
Process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture
Discovery
Making known/sharing the existence of an aspect of reality
Invention
Results when existing cultural items are combined into a form that didn’t exist before
Diffusion
Globalization creates more and more cultural expression and practices are crossing national borders, process comes at a cost and has led to cultural domination of developing nations by more affluent nations
Material culture
Physical modification of the natural environment to suit our purposes
Technology
Form of culture in which humans modify the natural environment to meet particular wants and needs
Cultural lag
Period of adjustment when no material culture is struggling to adapt to new condition of the material culture
Cognitive culture
Mental and symbolic representations of reality; customs, beliefs, and patterns of communication
Language
Foundation of a common culture is the system of shard symbols
Nonverbal communication
Gestures, facial expressions, and other visual images
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Language a person uses shapes their perception of reality and their thoughts and actions
Values
Collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, proper or bad, undesirable, improper in a culture
Normative culture
Ways we establish, abide by, and enforce principles of conduct
Norms
Establish standards of behavior maintained by a society, formal/informal
Formal norms
Written down and specify strict punishments for violators
Laws
Formal norms enforced by the state
Informal norms
Understood but not precisely recorded
Ideal norms
Guidelines for behavior that reflects what we think should be
Real norms
Reflect what actually is
Mores
Norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of society
Folkways
Norms governing everyday behavior
Sanctions
Penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a social norm
Dominant ideology
Set of cultural beliefs and practices that legitimated existing powerful social, economic, and political interests, help explain and justify who gets what and why in a way that supports and maintains the status quo
Subcultures
Within a single nation, certain segments of the populace develop cultural patterns that differ from the patterns of the dominant society
Argot
Specialized language used by members of a group/subculture
Countercultures
Oppose certain aspects of the larger culture
Culture shock
Person feels disoriented/uncertain due to experiencing cultural practices different from their own
Ethnocentrism
Tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life are superior to all others
Cultural relativism
Viewing people’s behavior from the perspective of their own culture
Peter Berger and Thomas Luchmann’s three step model
Constructing culture
Constructing the self
Constructing society
Culture’s three categories
Material
Cognitive
Normative
Norms three categories
Centrality
Formality
Adherence
George Murdock determined that
although all cultures share common denominators, how cultures address these practices and beliefs varies greatly.
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis example
we can conceive of something only if we have a term for it in our vocabulary.
