Chapter 2
Characteristics of Culture
What Will You Learn?
• Explain culture as a dynamic form of
adaptation
• Distinguish between culture, society, and
ethnicity
• Identify basic characteristics common to all
cultures
• Describe the connection among culture,
society, and the individual
• Understand ethnocentrism
Culture and Adaptation
• Adaptation is a series of beneficial
adjustments to a particular environment.
• Cultural adaptation is a complex of ideas,
technologies, and activities that enables
people to survive and even thrive in their
environment.
– Cultural adaptations are specific to certain areas
and groups. What is adaptive in one area may not
be in another.
The Concept of Culture
• A society’s shared and socially transmitted
ideas, values, and perceptions which are used
to make sense of experience and which
generate behavior is what defines culture.
• Everyone at some point in one’s early life will
become enculturated into their culture, it is
through this process that one learns how to
become a member of their society.
Characteristics Of Culture
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Culture is learned
Culture is shared.
Culture is symbolic.
Culture is integrated.
Culture is dynamic.
Culture Is Learned
• All culture is learned rather than biologically
inherited.
• Individuals of a culture will learn the socially
appropriate way to satisfy biologically
determined needs.
• The ability for learned behavior along with
innate (instinctual) behavior is present in most
all mammals.
• Primates have the highest degree of learned
behavior patterns.
Culture Is Shared
• All members of a culture will hold a shared set of
values, ideas, perceptions, and standards of behaviors.
• While culture enables individuals in a society to predict
how fellow members are most likely to behave in a
given circumstance this does not mean that everyone
within a culture will act and think the exact same way.
• Because culture cannot exist without society - an
organized group of people who share a territory,
language, and culture.
• There are no known human societies that do not
exhibit culture.
Subcultures
• Within larger societies there can be cultural
variation between subgroups in societies that
share an overarching culture and these are
known better as subcultures.
– Distinctive sets of standards and behavior patterns
by which a group within a larger society operates,
while still sharing common standards with that
larger society.
• The Amish of North America represent a
subculture within North American society,
specifically an ethnic group.
Amish-Ethnic Group
• Ethnic groups are people who collectively and
publicly identify themselves as a distinct group
based on various cultural features such as
shared ancestry and common origin,
language, customs, and traditional beliefs.
• The Amish live among but keep their beliefs,
values, and traditional lifestyle separate from
that of mainstream North Americans.
– Ethnicity – the expression of ideas held by an
ethnic group.
Amish Ideals
• Value simplicity, hard work, and a high degree
of neighborly cooperation.
• Amish education is to teach their children
reading, writing, and arithmetic alongside
Amish values.
• They reject what they regard as worldly
knowledge and resist any attempt to place
their children in public schools.
Not an Absolute Formula for Predicting
Behavior
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• May see a Coke can
or other item in
Amish buggy,
• Splinter group was
forcibly shaving the
beards of other
Amish
Pluralism
• Pluralistic societies or multi-ethnic societies
are examples by which two or more ethnic
groups or nationalities are politically organized
into one territorial state but maintain their
cultural differences.
• As it might appear this can often lead to
conflict and misunderstandings between
groups.
States and Nations
• Anthropology makes an important distinction
between the state and the nation.
• States are politically organized territories that
are internationally recognized, whereas
nations are socially organized bodies of
people who share a society - a common origin,
language and cultural heritage.
– Ex: the Kurds constitute a nation but their
homeland is divided among several states: Iran,
Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.
Culture is Based on Symbols
• Symbols are signs, emblems, and/or other
things that are arbitrary but represent
something in a meaningful way.
• Language is probably the most significant
cultural symbol, it is the method by which
humans transmit culture from one generation
to another.
Critical Thought
• How many symbols can you think of that are
found within our culture?
– Religious
– National
– Language
– Sub-culture
Culture Is Integrated
• All aspects of a culture
function as an integrated
whole.
• Any changes in the
culture can ultimately
effect another part of the
culture.
• There are three main
categories by which a
culture is divided: super,
social, and infrastructure.
Superstructure
• A society’s shared sense of identity and
worldview.
• The collective body of ideas, beliefs, and
values by which a group of people makes
sense of the world—its shape, challenges, and
opportunities—and their place in it.
• This includes religion and national ideology.
Social Structure
• The rule-governed relationships- with all their
rights and obligations- that hold members of a
society together.
• This includes households, families,
associations, and power relations, including
politics.
Infrastructure
• The economic foundation of a society,
including its subsistence practices, and the
tools and other material equipment used to
make a living.
Culture is Dynamic
• Cultures are dynamic systems that respond to motions
and actions within and around them.
• A culture must be flexible enough to allow adjustments
in the face of unstable or changing circumstances.
• All cultures are, by necessity, dynamic, but some are far
less so than others. If a culture is too rigid or static and
fails to provide its members with the means required
for long term survival it is likely to fail.
• Cultural adaptation- complex of ideas, technologies,
and activities that allow members of a group to survive
and even thrive in their environment.
Functions of Culture
• Hold strategies for the production and
distribution of goods and services considered
necessary for life.
• Ensure the biological continuity of its members.
• Provide a social structure for reproduction and
mutual support.
• Pass on knowledge and enculturate new
members.
• Facilitate social interaction and provide ways to
avoid or resolve conflicts.
• Meet the psychological and emotional needs of
its members.
Functions of Culture
• Involve a worldview that helps individuals
understand their place in the world and face
major changes or challenges.
• Some cultures allow for people to imagine an
afterlife, allows for the means to deal with the
grief of losing a loved one and face their own
demise with certain expectations.
Culture, Society, and the Individual
• A society is the union of people whom have their own
special needs and interests.
• To thrive, a balance must be struck between the
personal interest of members and the demands of the
society as a collective whole.
• Society offers rewards for adherence to its culturally
prescribed standards. These come in the form of social
approval.
• To ensure survival of the group, each person must learn
to postpone certain immediate personal satisfactions.
• Needs of the individual cannot be overlooked entirely
or emotional stress and growing resentment may
erupt.
Cultures and Change
• Few peoples today exist in total or near total
isolation. With globalization comes an
accelerated pace of cultural change.
– Technology, foreign invasion, new trade goods,
population growth, ecological shifts, etc.
• Violent or forced change from an outside
party.
• Values, ideas, or perceptions change over
time.
Cultural Change
• Climate and politics have
conspired to create
serious cultural change
among migratory herders.
• In Kenya, recent drought
combined with
restrictions on grazing
have caused cattle to die,
forcing herders to move
elsewhere and give up
their old lifeways entirely.
Ethnocentrism and Culture
• When the belief that the way of life of one’s
own culture is the only proper way of life is
held, this is called ethnocentrism.
• Anthropologists attempt to battle against
ethnocentric views by taking a different
approach: one must suspend judgment of
other peoples’ practices in order to
understand them in their own cultural terms,
also called cultural relativism.
Critical Thought
• What characteristics of one’s culture do you
think could lead to ethnocentric ideals?
Evaluation of Cultures
• How well does any culture satisfy the
biological, social, and psychological needs of
those whose behavior it guides?
• Cultures can be evaluated according to:
– Nutritional status
– Physical and mental health of population
– Incidence of violence, crime, and delinquency
– Demographic structure
– Stability and tranquility of domestic life
Critical Thought
• Given the aforementioned checklist to
evaluate one’s culture, how does the United
States stack up?
• How do recent trending topics in the news
support our assumptions?
– (health, foreign affairs, racial issues, homicide,
etc.)