1. CULTURE
Lecture 4 – 1st Semester

2. CULTURE
• Is the totality of learned socially transmitted customs,
knowledge, material objects, and behavior.
• It includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, law, morals, customs,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a
person as a member of society. – Edward Taylor
• Is the total socially acquired lifeways of a group of
people. - Marvin Harris
• All that human beings learned to do, to use, to produce,
and to believe as they grow to maturity and live out their
lives in the social group to which they belong. - Tischler

3. CULTURE
• Sets preconditioning factors for the development of an
individual’s personality.
• Provides the individual the material with which he or she
develops habits, motor skills, attitudes, prejudices,
aspirations, and capabilities.
• Provides knowledge which enables everyone to survive
physically or socially.
• Controls and regulates the collective existence of the society
and guides the individual in deciding the definition and order
of responses to future experiences.
• Therefore: Culture is the basis for human social life and is
essential for existence, it becomes the basis for interpreting
reality.

4. Ideal Culture vs. Real Culture
• Ideal Culture – is the way people describe the
standard of behavior – the blueprint which
provides the directions and guidelines in
relating with others or doing things.
• Real Culture – refers to how one behaves in an
actual situation within the context of what
may be regarded as acceptable by the other
members of society.

5. Characteristics of Culture
CULTURE is ...
• Learned
• Transmitted orally or by writing
• Shared
• Patterned and integrated
• Adaptive
• Compulsory
• Interact and change

6. Dimensions/Elements of Culture
• Ideas – nonmaterial aspects of culture
• Beliefs – man’s conviction on the reality of
things
• Values – collective conceptions of what is
considered good, desirable, proper – or bad,
undesirable, and improper – in a culture
• Common understanding – refers to the use of
gestures in interacting with others without
explanations

7. Dimensions/Elements of Culture
• Norms – established standards of behavior maintained by a
society.
– Formal Norms – norms that generally have been written
down and that specify strict rules for punishments of
violators.
– Informal Norms – norms that are generally understood
but are not precisely recorded.
– Mores – norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of
the society.
– Folkways – norms governing everyday social behavior
whose violation raises comparatively little concern

8. Dimensions/Elements of Culture
• Sanctions – penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a
social norm.
• Laws – are formalized norms defined by a governing body or
public authority.
• Fashion, fads, & crazes – short-term social norms which
demand compliance at the time they operate.
• Material – all physical, tangible, and concrete objects.
• Technology – information about how to use material
resources of the environment to satisfy human needs and
desires.
• Language – an abstract system of word meanings and
symbols for all aspects of culture. It includes gestures and
nonverbal communication.

9. Culture and Dominant Ideology
• Dominant Ideology – describes the set of
cultural beliefs and practices, which help to
maintain powerful social, economic, and
political interests.
• Ideology – refers to a meaningful system of
doctrines, ideas and symbols, norms, and
values.

10. Aspects of Cultural Variation
• Subculture – a segment of society that shares a
distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and values
that differ from the pattern of the larger society.
• Counterculture – a subculture that deliberately
opposes certain aspects of the larger culture.
• Culture Shock – the feeling of surprise and
disorientation that is experienced when people
encounter cultural practices different from their
own.

11. Attitudes toward Cultural
Variation
• Ethnocentrism – the tendency to assume that
one’s own culture and way of life represent
the norm or are superior to all others.
• Cultural Relativism – the viewing of people’s
behavior from the perspective of their own
culture.
• Xenocentrism - the belief that the products,
styles, or ideas of one’s society are inferior to
those that originate elsewhere.