Shaping Our Cultural Behaviou Flashcards
Hot Climate Adaptation
The way in which people strategize culturally in order to live comfortably in a hot climate
Cold Climate Adaptation
The way in which people strategize in order to live comfortably in a cold climate.
For example, the Inuit people created sealskin clothing
Physical Environment & Culture
- effects cultural behviour, style, shelder, food, physcial and emotional health
- ie. epensive winter coats and air conditioning
Technological Diffusion:
The adoption by one culture of a technology invented by another culture.
Air Conditioning Example:
- The ability to control indoor climates
- Revolutionized how people live
- Became more isolated from their physical neighbours
Digital Technology
- Phones, cameras, computers, online games
- Allows for people to connect with each other
- Impacts on cultures & subcultures → research studies into hackers & blogger culture, greater popularity of texting among teens, etc.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis:
- relation of language and culture
- shapes cultural relity, not just relilty
- Since language shapes our thinking, the structure of the language changes our thinking
- Having more than one word for a word may reflect how after you think about that word or culture/environment
Euphemisms
- Words to describe an uncomfortable/inappropriate concept in a socially acceptable way
- Reveals what things are taboo in a culture
Body Language:
- One of the most important ways of communication
- Body language may have several meanings in other cultures
Reciprocity
An economic system of formal and informal sharing among members of a society to distribute resources fairly
Redistribution
An economic system of collecting resources centrally and handing them out among members of a society
Agricultural Societies:
- Higher class people didn’t do farm work, whereas peasants did the farm work as it was a low class job.
- Higher class people bought resources from the farmers, and from this an agricultural society was established
Industrial Societies:
- Less than the majority of population working to provide food and goods needed for subsistence, with most people working in wage labour.
Post-Industrial Societies
- majority of the population does not work for subsistence or in industry producing things; rather, people work in service sector, producing information or providing a service.
Globalization:
- The process by which economies, societies and cultures become integrated through a worldwide network.
