WHAT IS CULTURE?

PSYC 433

CULTURE IS…

“the truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side.” (Blaise Pascal) “the man-made part of the human environment.” (Herskovits, 1948, p. 17)

Definition of Culture

Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, Including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952 (p. 181)

Objective culture …

is material culture and consists of such elements as dress, food, houses, highways, tools, and machines.

Subjective culture …

“is a cultural group’s characteristic way of perceiving its social environment.”

Triandis, 1972 (p. 4) 

Psychological definition

A Cognitive Approach

Culture denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.

Geertz, 1972 (p. 89)

Another Cognitive Approach

Culture is defined as collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another.

Hofstede, 1980 (p. 25)

The Three Levels of Culture

Schein, 1985

Artifacts & Behaviour

Problem-solving, greetings, rituals

Values & Norms

Collectivism, egalitarianism, competitiveness

Basic Assumptions

Relationship between humans and nature, social relationships, time orientation Visible, but not always understood Mostly unconscious, but realizable Unconscious

Values, Attitudes and Behaviour

Culture Behaviour Values Attitudes Adler, 1972 (p. 89)

Values are…

“a broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others.” (Hofstede, 1980, p. 19)

* Values are what you wish and what is important to you.

* Values are essential for the concept of our self.

Cultural values …

represent explicit and implicit shared ideas about what is good, correct and desirable within a group of people.

TASKS

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Ask yourself: What is important to you?

How is this affected by your cultural background?

* Take a walk through Wellington and observe your surroundings: What symbols or behaviour do you find that may be influenced by culture?

Questions to ask

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Which values are universal?

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Which values are only shared by a group of people?

Do people share the same basic value orientations?

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Do different environmental conditions produce different values? Does this mean that these fundamentals of human behavior cannot be compared across cultures?

Kluckhohn and Strodtbecks (1961) Fundamental Value Orientations

* Human nature (good, bad or neither as well as mutable or unmutable) * Relation to nature (mastery, harmony subordination) * Time orientation (past, present or future) * Activity (being, doing or becoming) * Relations among human beings (lineal, collateral or individualist)

Essential elements of culture

* Culture distinguishes the members of one human group from another.

* Culture is a shared belief system and has to be learned.

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Culture consists of patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting.

* Culture influences our behavior mainly unconsciously and is taken for granted.

* Culture has strong influence on our identity.

* Culture underlies current change.

* Cultural patterns are mainly acquired and transmitted by means of communication.

* Culture is crystallized in institutions people have built together and therefore takes place in different areas.

Culture is not….

* A social system * Society * Nation

People are - members of society - participate in social systems and - share culture.

QUESTIONS FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS

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What is universal about human beings?

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What are characteristic features of a certain group of people, e.g. cultural groups?

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What makes the individual unique?

Universalism Cultural differences can be neglected as the commonalities among human beings outweigh them. Basic psychological processes are common to all members of the species. They constitute a set of psychological givens in all human beings.

Cultural Relativism (Boas, 1939) The development of human personality is mainly influenced by our environment.

All human behavior is culturally patterned.

Cultural relativism seeks to avoid “ethnocentrism” by trying to understand people in their own terms.

Ethnocentrism (Sumner, 1906) A strong tendency to use one’s own group’s standards as

the

standard when viewing other groups, to place one’s group at the top of a hierarchy and to rank all others as lower.

Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)

1. General characteristics 2. Food and clothing 3. Housing and technology 4. Economy and transport 5. Individual and family activities 6. Community and government 7. Welfare, religion and science 8. Sex and life cycle

BERRY & GEORGAS (1995)

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Eco-cultural: temperature, terrain, water supply, soil conditions Socio-political: economic, political and judicial, religion, education