Culture

Taiwan Peru

IndiaNew Guinea

New Guinea

Brazil

Kenya

Egypt

CultureCulture: a design for living, produced by members of society.

It’s the languages, values, symbols, norms, behavior, and material objects passed from one generation to the next.

Non-material Material “thinking”

“objects”

Units of Culture

•Trait: bacon, eggs, toast, juice,…

•Complex: breakfast

•Pattern: eating

•Culture: three meals a day

Taken for Granted

“The last thing a fish would ever notice would be the water.”

When our assumptions of culture are challenged it can be upsetting. A couple examples are hygiene and starring.

All Cultures Consist of Five

Components

1.Symbols- attach meaning to and use to communicate.

Symbols affect our thoughts about gender and race

Symbols can be many things to many people

They can stand for love, peace, hate, etc..

Send the right signal!

Language

•Allows human experience to be cumulative.

•Provides a shared social past

•Provides a shared social future.

•Share experiences with others.

•Allows us goal directed behavior.

Values are shared beliefs by society that something is good, desirable, or important.

Highly held values lead to conflict, such as freedom and individualism

American Value System

By: Robin Williams (1965)

1.Achievement 2. Individualism 3. Work

4. Efficiency 5. Progress 6. Science

7. Material Comfort 8. Humanitarianism

9. Freedom 10. Democracy 11. Racism

12. Education 13. Religion 14. monogamy

Emerging Values

Leisure

Youngness

Self-fulfillment

Physical Fitness

Value Contradiction

When values challenge one another

Ex. Morality vs. Partying

Norms-shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in specific situation.

Folkways

Mores

Taboos

Sanctions Positive Negative Formal

Informal

Ethnocentrism is deeply instilled in our minds that we condemn cultural practices radically different from ours.

Napolean Chagnon and his life with the Yanomamo.

Cultural Relativism requires the suspension of our own perspectives in order to grasp the perspective of others.

Subcultures

Share a distinct set of cultural beliefs and behaviors that differ in some significant way from that of the large society.

Participate in mainstream society, but associate with one another more personally and frequently than with members of other groups.

Amish

100,000 pop.75% living in Pennsylvania Values include joy in work,thriftiness, faith in God, reject worldly concerns.

Counterculture: a group that strongly rejects dominant societal values and norms and seeks alternative lifestyles.

High Culture: classical music, theatre, and other elite activities.

Popular Culture

Forms of Popular Culture

FADS: