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3.6: Key Terms

  • Page ID
    172031
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    beliefs
    tenets or convictions that people hold to be true
    countercultures
    groups that reject and oppose society’s widely accepted cultural patterns
    cultural universals
    patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies
    culture
    shared beliefs, values, and practices
    culture lag
    the gap of time between the introduction of material culture and nonmaterial culture’s acceptance of it
    diffusion
    the spread of material and nonmaterial culture from one culture to another
    discoveries
    things and ideas found from what already exists
    ethnocentrism
    the evaluation and judgment of another culture based on one’s own cultural norms
    folkways
    direct, appropriate behavior in the day-to-day practices and expressions of a culture
    formal norms
    established, written rules
    globalization
    the integration of international trade and finance markets
    high culture
    the cultural patterns of a society’s elite
    ideal culture
    the standards a society would like to embrace and live up to
    informal norms
    casual behaviors that are generally and widely conformed to
    innovations
    new objects or ideas introduced to culture for the first time
    inventions
    a combination of pieces of existing reality into new forms
    language
    a symbolic system of communication
    mores
    the moral views and principles of a group
    norms
    the visible and invisible rules of conduct through which societies are structured
    popular culture
    mainstream, widespread patterns among a society’s population
    real culture
    the way society really is based on what actually occurs and exists
    sanctions
    a way to authorize or formally disapprove of certain behaviors
    Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
    the way that people understand the world based on their form of language
    social control
    a way to encourage conformity to cultural norms
    society
    people who live in a definable community and who share a culture
    subcultures
    groups that share a specific identification, apart from a society’s majority, even as the members exist within a larger society
    symbols
    gestures or objects that have meanings associated with them that are recognized by people who share a culture
    values
    a culture’s standard for discerning what is good and just in society

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