Transcript Culture - Cathedral Catholic

Culture
Chapter 3
Nature and Nurture
Are you a product of your heredity or your culture?
Write down all the ways you resemble your parents,
brothers, and sister.
Write down all the ways that culture influences you.
Music
Language
Hobbies
Culture vs. Society
Culture
Knowledge, values, customs, and physical objects that
are shared by members of a society
A society’s way of life
Material and non-material culture
Society
A specific territory inhabited by people who share a
common culture
Common Cultural
Elements
Get into groups in which there are at least two
different cultural backgrounds
Find all the similar customs, habits, holidays, family
arrangements, etc.
Do cultures have more similarities or differences?
Is there an underlying social structure that guides
behavior in ALL cultures?.......say “YES”
Culture and Heredity
Instincts
Innate (unlearned) patterns of behavior
Examples?
½ your personality is genetically determined and ½ is
factored by culture
Reflex
Automatic reaction to physical stimulus
Examples?
Drive
Impulse to reduce discomfort
Examples?
Sociobiology
The study of the biological basis of human behavior
Assume behaviors that best help people are
biologically based and transmitted in genetic code
Criticism: emphasis placed on genetics can justify
labeling specific races superior to others
“Gay gene” debate
How Well Do You Know
Your Culture?
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Better safe than sorry.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
No news is good news.
If you lie down with the dogs, you’ll rise with the fleas.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
Children should be seen and not heard.
Better late than never.
Symbols, Language, and
Culture
Symbols
A thing that stands for or represents something else
Today we will call the _____ the _____.
How does this change our behavior?
How are language and culture related?
Language allows culture to exist
Get yourselves into birth order (at the front of the room)
without talking
What does this show us???
Most communication is non-verbal. Examples?
Social Norms
Norms
Rules defining appropriate and inappropriate behavior (look
at page 82)
Types of Norms
Folkways
Norms that lack moral significance
Mores
Norms that have moral dimensions and that should be
followed by members of the society
Taboos: a rule of behavior, the violation of which calls for
strong punishment
Laws
A norm that is formally defined and enforced by officials
Not all mores become laws and not all laws are mores
Examples??
Enforcing Norms
Sanctions
Rewards or punishments used to encourage people to
follow norms
Formal sanctions
Sanctions imposed by persons given special authority
Informal sanctions
Rewards or punishment that can be applied by most
members of a group
Moral Holidays…..
What Do You Think
About Laws?
“A law’s justification is in the good it does or fails to
do the society of a given place or time.”
- Albert Camus
What is he saying?
Are there any “bad” laws?
How do laws change over time?
Look at page 86
Material and NonMaterial Culture
Beliefs
People base their behavior on what they believe:
regardless of true or false
What are beliefs that we used to think were true, but
are not true today?
Material Culture
Material objects that have no meaning until WE apply
meaning to them
Pair up and analyze an activity based on material and
on-material culture
Does material culture’s meaning change?
i.e. the telephone
Ideal vs. Real Culture
Ideal culture:
Honesty, hard work = success, integrity
Real:
Examples…
Comparing Cultures
Ethnocentrism
Judging another culture based on one’s own cultural
standards
Cultural Relativism
Trying to understand a culture on its own terms, not
judging
Bunny Bashing story NOW!!!
Culture Shock
The anxiety and feelings felt when people have to
operate within an entirely different cultural or social
environment
3 Phases
“Honeymoon” Phase
“Everything is Awful” Phase
“Everything is Okay” Phase
**Reverse Culture Shock**
Why Does Culture
Change?
Discovery
Invention
Diffusion
Can you recognize change: IM Speak….