Culture

w      Culture – consists of all the shared products of human groups which include physical objects, beliefs, values, and behaviors shared by a group

w      Material Culture – are physical objects that people create and use such as books, buildings, clothing, and cooking

w      Nonmaterial Culture – are abstract human creations that include beliefs, family patterns, ideas, and language

Basic Components of Culture

w      Technology – physical objects and rules for using them

w      Symbols – anything that represents something else and has a shared meaning

w      Language – the organization of written or spoken symbols into a standardized system

w      Values – shared beliefs about what is good and bad or right or wrong

w      Norms – shared rules of conduct

Cultural universals – general traits common to all cultures

w      Exist because some needs are so basic that all societies must develop certain features to ensure their fulfillment

Cultural Variation

w      Ethnocentrism – the tendency to view one’s own culture and group as superior to other different cultures

w      Cultural Relativism – belief that a culture should be judged by its own standards rather than by those of another culture

w      Subculture – shared values, norms and behaviors that are not shared by the entire population

w      Counterculture – rejection of the major values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replacing them with a new set of cultural values