Chapter 3
Culture
By Boundless
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Culture relates to nature (our biology and genetics) and nurture (our environment and surroundings that also shape our identities).
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Culture is what differentiates one group or society from the next; different societies have different cultures.
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A cultural universal is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide.
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Culture shock is the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life in a new country.
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Ethnocentrism, in contrast to cultural relativism, is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture.
In the social sciences, material culture is a term that refers to the relationship between artifacts and social relations.
Non-material culture includes the behaviors, ideas, norms, values, and beliefs that contribute to a society's overall culture.
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The symbolic systems that people use to capture and communicate their experiences form the basis of shared cultures.
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The origin of language is a widely discussed and controversial topic due to very limited empirical evidence.
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Language may refer either to the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such.
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Various theories assume that language is not simply a representational tool; rather it fundamentally shapes our perception.
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Language is a symbolic system of communication based on a complex system of rules relating spoken, signed, or written symbols.
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A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages.
Cultures have values that are largely shared by their members, which identify what should be judged as good or evil.
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Social norms are the explicit or implicit rules specifying what behaviors are acceptable within a society or group.
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As opposed to forms of internal control, like norms and values, sociologists consider sanctions a form of external control.
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Folkways and mores are informal norms that dictate behavior; however, the violation of mores carries heavier consequences.
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Culture is a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance.
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The belief that culture can be passed from one person to another means that cultures, although bounded, can change.
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The term "cultural lag" refers to the fact that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, resulting in social problems.
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Animal culture refers to cultural learning in non-human animals through socially transmitted behaviors.
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Despite certain consistent values (e.g. individualism, egalitarianism, freedom, democracy), American culture has a variety of expressions.
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People from different backgrounds tend to have different value systems, which cluster together into a more or less consistent system.
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Although various values often reinforce one another, these clusters of values may also include values that contradict one another.
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Values tend to change over time, and the dominant values in a country might shift as that country undergoes economic and social change.
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In American usage, "culture war" refers to the claim that there is a conflict between those conservative and liberal values.
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Cultures hold values that are largely shared by their members, thereby binding members together.
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Any given culture contains a set of values that determine what is important to the society; these values can be idealized or realized.