Chapter 2: Culture
Sociology: A Down-to-Earth
Approach 7/e
James M. Henslin
Chapter Two: Culture
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Chapter 2: Culture
What is Culture?
 Language, Beliefs, Values, Norms, Behavior Passed
from One Generation to the Next

Material vs. Nonmaterial Cultures
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Chapter 2: Culture
Culture and Taken-for-Granted
Orientations

What is Normal, Natural, or Usual?

The Culture Within Us

Culture as Lens

Culture Shock

Ethnocentrism
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Chapter 2: Culture
Practicing Cultural Relativism
 Understanding Cultures on Their Own Terms

“Sick Cultures”

Confronting Contrasting Views of Reality
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Chapter 2: Culture
Components of Symbolic Culture

Gestures

Language
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Chapter 2: Culture
Language and Culture
 Allows
Human Experience to be Cumulative

Provides a Social or Shared Past

Provides a Social or Shared Future
 Allows
Shared Perspectives
 Allows
Complex, Shared, Goal-Directed Behavior
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Chapter 2: Culture
Language and Perception:
Sapir-Whorf
Language
Has Embedded Within It Ways of
Looking at the World
Sapir-Whorf
Reverses Common Sense
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Chapter 2: Culture
Values, Norms, and Sanctions

Values—What is Desirable in Life

Norms—Expectations or Rules for Behavior

Sanctions—Reaction to Following or Breaking
Norms

Positive Sanctions

Negative Sanctions
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Chapter 2: Culture
Folkways and Mores

Folkways—Norms not Strictly Enforced

Mores—Core Values: We Insist on
Conformity
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Chapter 2: Culture
Subcultures and Countercultures
 Subculture—A World Within the Dominant
Culture

Countercultures—Groups With Norms and Values
at Odds With the Dominant Culture
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Chapter 2: Culture
Values in U.S. Society
Achievement and
Success
Progress
Equality
Individualism
Material Comfort
Racism and Group
Superiority
Activity and Work
Humanitarianism
Education
Efficiency and
Practicality
Freedom
Religiosity
Science and
Technology
Democracy
Romantic Love
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Chapter 2: Culture
Values in U.S. Society
 Achievement

and Success
Individualism
 Activity
and Work

Efficiency and Practicality

Science and Technology
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Chapter 2: Culture
Values in U.S. Society

Progress

Material Comfort

Humanitarianism

Freedom

Democracy
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Chapter 2: Culture
Values in U.S. Society

Equality

Racism and Group Superiority

Education

Religiosity

Romantic Love
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Chapter 2: Culture
Value Contradictions and Social Change
“It is precisely at the point of value contradictions,
then, that one can see a major force for social change
in a society.”
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Chapter 2: Culture
Emerging Values

Leisure

Self-fulfillment

Physical Fitness
 Youthfulness

Concern for the Environment
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Chapter 2: Culture
Values and Culture

Culture Wars: When Values Clash

Value as Blinders

“Ideal” vs. “Real” Culture
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Chapter 2: Culture
Cultural Universals
 Some Activities are Universal—Courtship,
Marriage, Funerals, Games, etc.

Specific Customs Associated with Activities Differ
Between Groups
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Chapter 2: Culture
Sociobiology

Controversial View of Human Behavior

Biology Cause of Human Behavior

Charles Darwin and Natural Selection

Sociologists and Social Biologists on
Opposite Sides
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Chapter 2: Culture
Technology in the Global Village

The New Technology—New Tools

Cultural Lag and Cultural Change

Technology and Cultural Leveling
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