Final Flashcards
Subjective elements of culture
Values, beliefs, norms, attitudes, worldviews
Values
Guiding principles that refer to desirable goals that motivate behavior; personal (individual) versus cultural (societal)
Beliefs
Propositions that are regarded as true
Norms
Generally accepted standards of behavior within a cultural or subcultural group
Attitudes
Evaluations of things, occurring either in ongoing thoughts or in memory
Worldviews
Culturally specific belief systems about the world and assumptions people have about their physical and social realities
Values - theorists
Geert Hofstede, Shalom Schwartz, Atran and Axelrod
Geert Hofstede - values categories
a. Individualism versus collectivism
b. Power distance
c. Uncertainty avoidance
d. Masculinity versus femininity
e. Long- versus short-term orientation
Shalom Schwartz - values categories
a. Embeddedness
b. Hierarchy
c. Mastery
d. Intellectual autonomy
e. Affective autonomy
a. Egalitarianism
b. Harmony
Atran and Axelrod - values categories
Sacred values
Individualism versus collectivism
The degree to which a culture encourages looking after one’s self and immediate family versus looking after members of their ingroup in exchange for loyalty
Power distance
The degree to which a culture encourages less powerful members to accept the unequal distribution of power
Uncertainty avoidance
The degree to which people feel threatened by the unknown and have developed beliefs and rituals to avoid it
Masculinity versus femininity
The degree to which a culture is focused on success, money, and things versus on caring for others and quality of life
Long- versus short-term orientation
The degree to which a culture encourages its members to delay gratification of material, social, and emotional needs and desires
Embeddedness
The degree to which a culture emphasizes maintenance of the status quo, propriety, and restraint of desires to take action to disrupt the group’s solidarity or traditional order
Hierarchy
The degree to which a culture emphasizes the legitimacy of hierarchical allocation of fixed roles and resources such as power, humility, and wealth
Mastery
The degree to which a culture emphasizes getting ahead through active self-assertion or dominance over natural or social environments
Intellectual autonomy
The degree to which a culture emphasizes independent ideas and the right of the individual to pursue personal intellectual directions
Affective autonomy
The degree to which a culture emphasizes people’s independent pursuit of positive experiences
Egalitarianism
The degree to which a culture emphasizes transcending selfish interests in favor of promoting the welfare of others
Harmony
The degree to which a culture emphasizes fitting in with the environment
Sacred values
Nonnegotiable values that incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success; such core values outweigh most others, especially economic ones
Beliefs - components
Social axioms, religions
Norms - components
Etiquette / politeness, expressive behavior, tightness versus looseness
Attitudes - components
Opinions, stereotypes, prejudice
Worldviews - components
Self concepts, attributions
Social axioms
General beliefs and premises about oneself, the social and physical environment, and the spiritual world
Religions
Organized systems of belief tying together attitudes, values, beliefs, worldviews, and norms
Etiquette / politeness
A code of behavior that describes expectations for social behavior according to contemporary cultural and conventional norms
Tightness versus looseness
The strength of social norms versus strength of sanctioning (how much tolerance there is for deviance from norms
Self concepts
How we think about ourselves–as individuals versus fundamentally connected with others, for example
Attributions
Inferences people make about the causes of events and their own and others’ behaviors
Social axioms - components
Dynamic externality, societal cynicism
Dynamic externality
An outward-oriented, simplistic grappling with external forces including fate and a supreme being; cultures high on this dimension tend to be more collectivistic, conservative, hierarchical, and spiritual
Societal cynicism
A predominantly cognitive apprehension or pessimism of the world; cultures high on this dimension believe that the world produces malignant outcomes, that they are surrounded by inevitable negative outcomes, and that individuals are suppressed by powerful others
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to view the world through one’s own cultural filters
Enculturation
The process by which individuals learn and adopt the ways and manners of their specific culture
Globalization
The process of integrating the world’s peoples economically, socially, politically, and culturally into a single world system or community
