Culture

Question 1

How do anthropologists define culture?

Answer 1

• Anthropologists define culture as The total system of ideas, values, behaviours, and attitudes of a society commonly shared by most members of society.

Question 2

What are the two basic components of culture?

Be sure you can give specific examples for each of these.

Answer 2

Non-Material Culture
(non-physical objects)
- Values
* Beliefs
* Symbols
* Language
* Social Organization

Material Culture
(physical objects)
* Tools
* Technology
* Clothing
* Means of transportation

Question 3

What is social organization?

Answer 3

How a culture organizes its members into smaller groups.

Question 4

What are some ways that cultures organize themselves?

Answer 4

For example, most cultures organize by:
Families
Religious Groups
Jobs
Friends
Socioeconomic Classes

Question 5

What are symbols and what do they do for a culture?

Answer 5

• Things that stand for something else –
  bring on reactions and emotions
• Could be both verbal (eh) and nonverbal
• Can be physical objects

Question 6

Why is language a key element of any culture?

Answer 6

*Agreed way to interpret words
(spoken/written/signed) in order to
communicate for meaning and
understanding
*It is a key element of any culture

Language affects people’s perception of reality.

– Studies find that when college students look at job descriptions written in masculine pronouns, they assume women are not qualified for the job*

Language reflects the social and political status of different groups in society.
– The term “working woman” suggests that women who do not work for wages are not working.

Question 7

What are norms in a culture? Give specific examples.

Answer 7

• Standard societal expectations for
  behaviour
• Specific cultural expectations for how to
  behave in a given situation
• A society without norms would be in chaos

Question 8

How are rites of passage/initiation ceremonies related to rituals?

Question 9

What are cultural values and how do they relate to norms? Give examples.

Question 10

Define and give examples of:
popular culture

Answer 10

• The beliefs, practices, and objects that are part of everyday traditions.
• It is mass-produced and mass-consumed.
• Has enormous significance in the formation of public attitudes and values, and plays a significant role in shaping the patterns of consumption in contemporary society

Question 11

Define and give examples of:
countercultures

Answer 11

• Subcultures are created as a reaction against the values of the dominant culture.
• Members of the counterculture reject the dominant cultural values and develop cultural practices that defy the norms and values of the dominant group.
• Nonconformity to the dominant culture is often the mark of a counterculture.

Question 12

Define and give examples of:
subcultures

Answer 12

The cultures of groups whose values and norms of behavior differ from the dominant culture.
* Members of subcultures interact frequently and share a common worldview.
* Subcultures share some elements of the dominant culture and coexist within it.

Question 13

Define and give examples of:
ethnocentrism

Answer 13

Judging a culture by standards of one’s
own culture:
–builds group solidarity
–discourages understanding
–can lead to conflict, war, and genocide

Question 14

Define and give examples of:
dominant cultures

Answer 14

The dominant culture is the most powerful group in society.
* It receives the most support from major institutions and constitutes the major belief system.
* Social institutions in the society perpetuate the dominant culture and give it a degree of legitimacy that is not shared by other cultures.

Question 15

Conflict Theory

Answer 15

Conflict theory emphasizes the role of coercion and power in producing social order.
▪ This perspective is derived from the works of Karl Marx, who saw society as fragmented into groups that compete for social and economic resources.
▪ Social order is maintained by domination, with power in the hands of those with the greatest political, economic, and social resources.
▪ When consensus exists, it is attributable to people being united around common interests, often in opposition to other groups.
* According to conflict theory, inequality exists because those in control of a disproportionate share of society’s resources actively defend their advantages.
* The masses are not bound to society by their shared values, but by coercion at the hands of those in power.
* This perspective emphasizes social control, not consensus and conformity.
* Groups and individuals advance their own interests, struggling over control of societal resources.

Question 16

Cultural Materialism

Answer 16

-Marvin Harris was influential in the
development of this theory.
-It states that the materials or conditions within the environment influence how a culture develops creating the ideas and ideology of a culture.
-In other words, if society doesn’t value or isn’t able to produce something – that thing will disappear from society.
-So, a value or institution (law, religion,
education) must benefit society or it will
disappear

Question 17

Feminist Theory

Answer 17

-This perspective states that culture is
constructed by the members of the
society.
-That is, ideas around gender are
created by culture, not biology, so the
emphasis is on how various cultures
look at gender roles, gender myths and
how gender is culturally constructed.
* Feminist theory analyzes the status of women
and men in society with the purpose of using that
knowledge to better women’s lives.
* Feminist theorists also question the differences
between women, including how race, class,
ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, and age intersect
with gender.
* Feminist theory is most concerned with giving a
voice to women and highlighting the various
ways women have contributed to society.

Question 18

Functionalist Theory

Answer 18

-The functionalist perspective also called functionalism, is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology.
* It has its origins in the works of Emile Durkheim, who was especially interested in how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable.
Functionalist Theory
* Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of
how it contributes to the stability of the whole society.
* Society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each part of society is functional for the stability of the whole
society.
* The different parts are primarily the institutions of society, each of which is organized to fill different needs and each of which has particular consequences for the form and shape of society.
* The parts all depend on each other.

Question 19

Rational Choice Theory

Answer 19

Human Actions Are Calculated And Individualistic
According to this theory, individuals are motivated by their personal wants and goals and are driven by personal desires.Since it is not possible for individuals to attain all of the various things that they want, they must make choices related to both their goals and the means for attaining those goals.
*Individuals must anticipate the outcomes of alternative
courses of action and calculate which action will be best for them.
*In the end, rational individuals choose the course of action that is likely to give them the greatest satisfaction.
* Economics plays a huge role in human behavior. That is, people are often motivated by money and the possibility of making a profit, calculating the likely costs and benefits of any action before deciding what to do.
* This way of thinking is called a rational choice theory.
* Economic theories look at the ways in which the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services is
organized through money.
* Rational choice theorists have argued that the same general principles can be used to understand human interactions where time, information, approval, and prestige are the resources being exchanged.

Question 20

Social Exchange Theory

Answer 20

-This theory interprets society as a series of interactions that are based on estimates of rewards and punishments.

-According to this view, our interactions are determined by the rewards or punishments that we receive from others and all human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis .

-Central to the social exchange theory is the idea that an interaction that elicits approval from another person is more likely to be repeated than an interaction that elicits disapproval.

-We can thus predict whether a particular interaction will be repeated by calculating the degree of reward (approval) or punishment (disapproval) resulting from the interaction. If the reward for an interaction exceeds the punishment, then the interaction is likely to occur or continue

Question 21

Social Learning Theory

Answer 21

• Social learning theory is a theory that attempts to explain socialization and its effect of the development of the self.
• There are many different theories that explain how people become socialized, including psychoanalytic theory, functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic
  interaction theory.
• Social learning theory, like these others, looks at the individual learning process, the formation of self, and the influence of society in socializing individuals.
• Social learning theory considers the formation of one’s identity to be a learned response to social stimuli.
• It emphasizes the societal context of socialization rather than the individual mind.
• This theory assumes that an individual’s identity is not the product of the unconscious (such as the belief of
  psychoanalytic theorists), but instead is the result of modelling oneself in response to the expectations of others.* Behaviors and attitudes develop in response to reinforcement and encouragement from the people around us.
• While social learning theorists acknowledge that childhood experience is important, they also believe that the identity people acquire is formed more by the behaviors and
  attitudes of others.
• Social learning theory has it’s roots in psychology and was shaped greatly by psychologist Albert Bandura.
• Sociologists most often use social learning theory to understand crime and deviance.
• According to social learning theory, people engage in crime because of their association with others who engage in crime. Their criminal behavior is reinforced and they learn beliefs that are favorable to crime. They essentially have criminal models that they associate with. As a consequence, these individuals come to view crime as something that is desirable, or at least justifiable in certain situations. Learning criminal or deviant behavior is the same as learning to engage in conforming behavior: it is done through association with or exposure to others. In fact, association with delinquent friends is the best predictor of delinquent behavior other than prior delinquency.

Question 22

Structural Strain Theory

Answer 22

Robert K. Merton developed the structural strain theory as an extension of the functionalist perspective on
deviance.
* This theory traces the origins of deviance to the tensions that are caused by the gap between cultural goals and the means people have available to achieve those goals.

Question 23

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 23

This perspective relies on the symbolic meaning that people develop and rely upon in the process of social interaction.
* The American philosopher George Herbert Mead introduced this perspective to American sociology in the 1920s.
* Symbolic interaction theory analyzes society by addressing the subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviors.
* Subjective meanings are given primacy because it is believed that people behave based on what they believe and not just on what is objectively true.
* Thus, society is thought to be socially constructed through human interpretation.
* People interpret one another’s behavior and it is these interpretations that form the social bond.
* These interpretations are called the “definition of the situation.”

Question 24

Samoan Tattoos Summarize

Question 25

Neck Stretching Summarize

Question 26

Poison Ants in Glove Summarize

Question 27

Joe – Canadian Rant Summarize

Question 28

TED Talk Summarize