CHAPTER 2
Culture and Nature
So really, what are you like deep down inside?”
© 2014 Wadsworth Cengage Learning
Chapter Topics
 Nature and Social Behavior
 Culture and Human Social Life
 Important Features of Human Social Life
Discussion: Nature and
Culture
 Which do you think is a more powerful force
on human behavior: nature or culture? Why?
 What do you think are advantages of being a
cultural species? What are the disadvantages?
Debate: Gender Identity
 Consider the case of Brenda, who was born a
boy, but raised as a girl after a botched
circumcision
 What does this say about the limits of
socialization?
 What do stories such as this suggest about culture
versus nature?
 Do you believe sex differences to be more innate
or more socialized?
http://youtu.be/3GhbVFjIaN0
Explaining the Psyche
 What is the psyche?
 A broad term for mind, encompassing emotions,
desires, perceptions, and all other psychological
processes
 How is the psyche shaped by nature and
culture? https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/nature-vs-nurture
 How do nature and culture interact with each
other?
Nature Defined
 How is nature explained in human behavior?
 Genes, hormones, brain structure and other
innate processes dictate one’s choices and actions
 Over the last two decades, many people have
focused on how evolution influences social
behavior
Evolution, and Doing What’s
Natural
 The theory of evolution focuses on how
change occurs in nature
 Natural selection decides which traits will
endure, and which will disappear
 Survival: living long enough to reproduce
 Reproduction: producing babies that also
reproduce
 Mutation: new gene or combination of genes
Social Animals
 Humans are social animals, and seek
connections to others
 What are some ways that people connect with
others?
 Being social offers evolutionary benefits
 Can find more food
 Can mate and reproduce easier
 Can alert each other to danger
 Can take care of sick and injured
The Social Brain
Social brain theory
 Animals with bigger
brains live in larger,
more complex social
groups (Dunbar,
1993, 1996)
 How is living in
larger groups more
complicated?
 Why would living in
larger groups require
larger brains?
Social Animal or Cultural
Animal?
 What is culture?
 An information-based system includes shared
ideas and common ways of doing things
 What makes humans cultural animals (as
opposed to merely social animals)?
Culture Defined
 Important features of culture
 Shared ideas
 What ideas do Democrats and Republicans share?
 Culture as a system
 How do we depend more on our encounters with
other people than with the natural world?
 Culture as praxis
 How do shared behaviors influence culture?
 Culture, information, and meaning
 How does language shape culture?
Food for Thought
 How does culture influence what we eat?
 Nature: Humans are naturally inclined to eat meat
 Culture: Many religions dictate what food can be
eaten, and vegetarians often say that it is wrong
to eat animals
Social Side of Sex
 Debate over whether
human sexuality is the
result nature or nurture?
 Aspects of sexuality
common across culture
may be rooted in nature.
 Some aspects of sexuality
show influence of culture.
 Differences exist within
cultures as well.
Common Aspects of Sexuality
 In all cultures men have a desire for more sex




partners than women.
Same basic sex practices known in most
cultures.
All cultures have runs about sex.
All cultures have made efforts to control
conception.
All cultures have some form of prostitution
Culture influences in
Sexuality
 Guam – a law prohibits a women from
marrying while a virgin.
 Turkey – women are expected to be virgins
until they marry.
 Indonesia - law prohibits masturbation,
people caught doing this crime are beheaded.
 Lebanese – men who have sex with male
animals are subject to the death penalty, but
is perfectly legal to have sex with a female
animal.
Nature and Culture
Interacting
 How do nature and culture interact to
influence us?
 Professional athletes are likely to be born in
January because as kids, they are in leagues with
younger, smaller kids
 Younger kids drop out more often; older, larger,
more coordinated kids get more attention from
coaches
Nature and Culture
Interacting (cont’d.)
 Co-evolution: nature shapes culture, and
culture shapes nature
 How is being a cultural animal different than
being a social animal (e.g., an elephant or an
ant)?
 Language
 Division of labor (bees vs. football team)
 Ability to solve disagreements (violence vs.
cultural norms)
The Duplex Mind
 Automatic system
 Outside of consciousness
 Simple operations
 Always on, even in sleep
 Conscious system
 Complex operations
 Turns off during sleep
What is the Role of
Consciousness?
 Increased scientific focus on role of automatic
system
 Can learn, think, choose, and respond
 Has ideas and emotions
 Knows “self” and other people
 Consciousness focuses on complex thinking and
logic
 How do complex thinking and logic affect our behaviors?
 Are they necessary for everyday life?
How They Work Together
 Automatic system makes conscious thought
possible
 Conscious override: deliberate system can
suppress automatic urges
 When have you used conscious override?
The Long Road to Social
Acceptance
 Working to gain social acceptance
 People learn to work within cultural bounds
 In Victorian era, cursing and picking your nose was
unacceptable; today, cursing is often accepted,
but picking your nose is not
Built to Relate
 How have human emotions evolved to help
bond people together in tighter (and more
evolutionarily advantageous) social groups?
 Automatic processes prepare us for
interactions with other groups
 Why do people feel aggressive when thinking
about groups they don’t like?
Nature Says Go; Culture Says
Stop
 Nature: impulses, wishes, automatic
responses
 Culture: teaches self-control and restraint
 Exceptions
 Nature’s disgust reactions (Stop)
 Cultural timetable for meals (Go)
Selfish Impulse Versus
Social Conscience
 Why does nature make us selfish?
 Natural selection: preservation of self
 Why would culture ask us to resist selfish
impulses?
 Consideration of what is best for society
 Morality works best for small, close-knit groups
 Laws take the place of morality for suppressing
selfish urges with larger groups
Putting People First
 How do human senses vary from other
animals’?
 Dogs hear many things humans cannot, but they
do not hear as precisely as humans do
 How does each way of hearing change the
lifestyle of the animal?
 How is culture a “general store” of
information?
 How do other animals figure things out, if not
through culture?
Putting People First
(cont’d.)
 People look to each other first
 Asch: Line-judging task
 Participants were asked to look at which line fit
best
 Confederates in group gave wrong answer; many
participants did, too
• Why are people influenced more by others
who are perceived as similar to
themselves?
What Makes Us Human?
 Human life is enmeshed in culture
 What common themes do cultures share?
 What unique problems does culture create?
 Why and how is knowledge shared from
generation to generation?
 Humans think with language and meaning
 How does this influence our behavior?
 What is the evolutionary advantage of language?
Conclusion
 Human behavior results from a mix of nature
and culture
 Nature and culture interact with each other to
influence human behavior
 Culture is a powerful force on people, even
overcoming nature at times