Chapter 8: Culture Flashcards
Enculturation
The process by which a child learns his or her own culture
Culture
Sets of learned behaviours and ideas that humans acquire as members of society
Transmission
Ability to copy a behaviour by observing or learning
Memory
Ability to remember behaviours
Reiteration
Ability to reproduce or imitate behaviours
Innovation
Ability to develop new behaviours
Selection
Ability to know which behaviours to keep or discard
Culture is shared
Within and across groups
Culture is symbolic
Ex: Language
Culture is patterned
Cultures are varied, but patterns exist
Culture is learned
Enculturation
Culture is holistic
All encompassing
Ethnocentrism
The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural and correct
Cultural relativism
The idea that all people are important and have viable cultures
Cultural adaptation
Cultural activities that help humans succeed in environments
Maladaptations
Cultural activities that harm humans/environments
Agency
Control of one’s own life
Cultural determinism
The false belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at all levels
Participant-Observation research
Extended periods of close contact with another society
Ethnography
Holistic study of a single group of people within a period of time
Ethnology
Multiple groups in comparison, usually with a theme
Holism
An analysis of a society as a whole which refuses to break society into component parts.
Emic
From within the social group.
Etic
From outside the social group.
Traditional ecological knowledge
Set of tools, skills, and knowledge used by the people for survival.
Entomophagy
The practice of eating insects.
