4.1.8: End of Chapter Discussion
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
- Anonymous
- LibreTexts
Discussion
- Why is the concept of culture difficult to define? What do you think are the most important elements of culture?
- In the twenty-first century, people have much greater contact with members of other cultures than they did in the past. Which topics or concerns should be priorities for future studies in culture?
- COVID-19 had an impact on all cultures around the world and there were many short-term changes in behavior that we all had to incorporate into our daily lives. Since culture is integrated, what were some of the short-term changes to other aspects of our culture? What are some long-term cultural changes that we may see as a result of the pandemic?
GLOSSARY
Acculturation: An ongoing exchange of cultural traits between groups that have continuous first-hand contact; both groups experience change while remaining two distinct groups.
Adaptation: Any alteration in the structure or functioning of an organism (or group of organisms) that improves its ability to survive and reproduce in its environment.
Beliefs: All the mental aspects of culture including values, norms, philosophies, worldview, knowledge, and so forth.
Biological plasticity : An ability to adapt biologically in response to the environment.
Colonialism: The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time.
Core Values: The key, basic, or central values that integrate culture and help distinguish it from others.
Cultural adaptation: The knowledge or behavior that enables humans or groups to adjust, survive and thrive in their environment.
Cultural generalities: Patterns or traits that are found in several, but not all, societies.
Cultural particularity: A distinct trait or feature that is confined to a single place, culture, or society.
Cultural relativism : The idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than our own.
Cultural universals: Patterns or traits that are found in all cultures.
Culture: A set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways.
Culture lag: The time that elapses between the introduction of a new item of material culture and its acceptance as part of the nonmaterial culture.
Custom: A widely accepted way of doing something, specific to a particular society that has developed through repetition over a long period of time.
Diffusion: The borrowing of cultural traits between cultures, either directly or through intermediaries.
Enculturation: The process of learning culture.
Ethnocentrism : The tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as a stick by which to measure all other cultures.
Folkways: A loose collection of usual or customary ways in which the members of a particular cultural community behave.
Globalization: A series of processes that work trans-nationally to promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent.
Independent invention: The process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems.
International culture: Cultural traits that extend beyond national boundaries.
Laws: Explicitly stated rules that are enforced.
Mores: The standards of moral conduct and ethical behavior that the people in a cultural community expect of one another; what a community considers morally or ethically right or wrong.
National culture: The beliefs, behavior patterns, values, cultural traits and institutions shared within a country.
Norms: The expectations or rules, formal or informal, about what is considered appropriate or inappropriate behavior in a particular society.
Practices: Behaviors and actions that may be motivated by belief or performed without reflection as part of everyday routines.
Popular culture: The pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in mainstream society.
Social sanctions: Ways of communicating disapproval or putting pressure on people who violate a community’s mores.
Society: Organized life in groups.
Stressors: Something that causes strain or tension.
Subcultures: Smaller groups of people who share cultural traits and patterns within the same country.
Symbol : Something, verbal or non-verbal, that stands for something else, often without an obvious or natural connection.
Tradition: A set of practices, a constellation of beliefs, or mode of thinking that exists in the present, but was inherited from the past.
Values: The symbolic, abstract concepts or standards that represent the ideals of a group.