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Lecture Seven: Culture
Read: Chapter 2
Multimedia in Blackboard: Culture
To study society and people, besides sociological theories and research methods,
sociologists also need to understand culture. Sociologists define culture as “the language,
beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and even material objects that characterize a group and
are passed from one generation to the next” (Henslin, 2015, pg. 38).
Within each society such as the United States, people share core values that are shaped
by a society’s history, availability of resources, and other social factors. People in a
society are united by these most important beliefs about how things ought to be. A
society’s core values evolve, change over time, may contradict, and shape our own
thinking, behavior, opportunities, and the type of groups that we belong to.
Your Turn: how do you think people in other countries describe the American culture?
Food for Thought: On pages 55-57, Henslin (2015) lists the core values of the American
culture and adds emerging values. Do you think these core values are an accurate
description of the American culture?
American Core Values
Achievement and Success
Individualism
Hard Work
Efficiency and Practicality
Science and Technology
Material Comfort
Freedom
Democracy
Equality
Working toward goals usually
related to financial success.
Individual wellbeing placed
before wellbeing of the group.
Americans are work orientated
rather than family or leisure
orientated in order to attain
financial success.
Greatest productivity in the
fastest manner possible.
Contributes to efficiency. Latest
and the greatest gadgets.
Often requires financial success.
Relates to individual freedoms
and individualistic culture.
Freedom for people to
participate in society’s decision
making processes.
Fairness
Do not plagiarize or copy from this document without using the appropriate citations.
R. Pires, 2014-2015. Material based on Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology. Pearson, 2015.
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Group Superiority
Education
Religiosity
Romantic Love
Emerging Core Values
Some groups are treated more
importantly than others.
Advance in learning
Freedom of religion but the
expectation that people hold
religious beliefs
Love before marriage rather
than marriage before love.
Your Turn
What New Values Do You See
Emerge?
Leisure
Self-Fulfillment
Physical Fitness
Youthfulness
Concern for Environment
The United States is an individualistic culture, meaning individual wellbeing is placed
before the wellbeing of a group. This is opposite for collectivist cultures which place the
wellbeing of a group before the individual.
Example: In the United States, there is an expectation that children will move out of the
house when reaching adulthood to build a life of their own rather than stay to take care of
aging parents. People marry for their own individual happiness rather than participate in
arranged marriages where life partners are chosen by other family members for the
wellbeing of the entire family. When people are successful, Americans contribute success
to the individual hard work and effort. When people fail to reach their goals there is an
assumption that it is due to lack of effort rather than an examination of societal
conditions. When people are healthy we attribute this to their good genetics and illness is
often associated with personal bad choices.
Food for Thought: Given that Americans place so much importance on individuality,
how might this contribute to some of the social problems in society such as divorce,
mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, and poverty among others?
Throughout the semester, we will study how the core values of the American culture
contribute both to the positive and negative aspects of our society.
Of course most Americans if asked would probably answer that the family is an
important part of their lives, yet why isn’t the family listed as a core value? Although
Americans value financial success, many people are only several paychecks from
Do not plagiarize or copy from this document without using the appropriate citations.
R. Pires, 2014-2015. Material based on Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology. Pearson, 2015.
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poverty. The core values represent beliefs about an ideal culture or what we should
aspire to and hold dear in our minds rather than real culture; beliefs guiding the
everyday lives of most Americans such as the family, ability to pay their bills and provide
for their loved ones.
Cultural values and norms continually evolve and often technology facilitates cultural
changes. Technology is a major part of material culture as the objects that are
representative of a culture often are used as tools such as architecture, furnishings,
utensils, machinery, clothing, etc.
Through migration of people moving from one country to another and technologies
related to communication and travel, people interact with people in other cultures and
cultural diffusion occurs as material culture (objects) and nonmaterial culture (beliefs)
are exchanged and adopted by each culture.
Examples:
Cultural Diffusion
Global Influence
“Sizzling fajitas, hard shell
tacos, and frozen
margaritas” - Americanized
adaptations of Mexican
cuisine (Conill, 2012),
martial arts, soccer, Latin
American and Reggae
music, meditation,
acupuncture, anime, etc.
American Influence
McDonald’s hamburgers
around the world have
unique cultural variations,
skateboarding, jazz and
country music, blue jeans,
social media, Hollywood,
etc.
Your Turn:
As cultural ideas and ways of doing things spread across the globe, similarities unite
people. There is strong criticism of the trends related to cultural globalization and this in
sociology is referred to as cultural leveling and defined as “the process by which
cultures become similar to one another, refers especially to the process by which Western
culture is being exported and diffused into other nations” (Henslin, 2015, pg. 62).
In many parts of the world, older generations worry that young adults are losing a sense
of tradition, and uniqueness related to language, cooking methods, dress, and customs
that are associated with their ethnic group. In some regions, traditions of ethnic groups
are becoming extinct as younger generations no longer pass down their histories or have
forgotten them altogether.
Do not plagiarize or copy from this document without using the appropriate citations.
R. Pires, 2014-2015. Material based on Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology. Pearson, 2015.
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Multiculturalism recognizes that cultural diversity is an important aspect of the
American culture. The United States is a pluralistic society meaning that there is a huge
variation in the different types of groups that exist in our society.
Cultural change also occurs as people adapt new ways of thinking and behaving in an
effort to keep up with technological advances. William Ogburn coined the term cultural
lag when he observed that a “group’s material culture usually changes first, with the
nonmaterial culture lagging behind” (Henslin, 2015, pg. 61). What this means is that
technology is the first thing to change in a culture with ideas about its use taking longer
for people to sort out. As people sort the ethical dilemmas created by advances in
technological innovations, cultural values and norms continue to evolve.
Examples:
Cultural Lag
Material Culture (Objects)
Cloning Human Life/
Body Parts
Self-Driving Cars
Google Glass
Drones
Nonmaterial Culture (Beliefs)
Moral and ethical dilemmas
regarding life.
Legal dilemmas regarding
hacking into GPS, responsible
parties in case of accidents.
Legal and moral dilemmas
about stalking and privacy.
Legal dilemmas regarding
privacy/safety concerns.
Your Turn:
Your Turn:
Language is another vehicle for cultural change. Subcultures and countercultures that
exist within a broader dominant culture have their own ways of thinking and behaving
that are extensions of the mainstream dominant culture (subcultures) or clash with it
(countercultures). Both of subcultures and countercultures have their own gestures and
ways of communicating that over time may get engrained in the dominant culture. For
example, text messaging and emoticons are changing the way people communicate.
Examples: Here are some new words added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 2014
Hashtag
Selfie
Catfish
Crowdfunding Tweep
Your Turn:
George Murdock an anthropologist studied cultural universals and identified behaviors
that are common in every culture however he concluded that “although there are
universal human activities, there is no universal way of doing them (Henslin, 2015, pg.
59).
Do not plagiarize or copy from this document without using the appropriate citations.
R. Pires, 2014-2015. Material based on Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology. Pearson, 2015.
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(Source: http://www.unc.edu)
Pop Quiz
What is the difference between material and nonmaterial culture?
What is the difference between culture shock, ethnocentrism, and cultural relativism?
What are gestures and symbols?
How does language allow culture to exist?
What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
What is the difference between values and norms?
What are sanctions?
What are moral holidays?
What is the difference between folkways, mores, and taboos?
What is the difference between subcultures and countercultures?
What are some of the U.S. core values?
What is the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures?
What is the difference between ideal and real cultures?
What is meant by cultural universals?
What is cultural diffusion?
What is cultural lag?
What is cultural leveling?
Do not plagiarize or copy from this document without using the appropriate citations.
R. Pires, 2014-2015. Material based on Henslin, James. Essentials of Sociology. Pearson, 2015.