Chapter Four: Cultural beliefs - Key Terms

Question 1

Cultural beliefs

Answer 1

The predominant beliefs in a culture about right and wrong, what is most important in life, and how life should be lived.They may also include beliefs about where and how life originated and what happens after death.

Question 2

Symbolic inheritance

Answer 2

The set of ideas and understandings, both implicit and explicit, about persons, society, nature, and divinity that serve as a guide to life in a particular culture. It is expressed symbolically through stories, songs, rituals, sacred objects, and sacred places.

Question 3

Roles

Answer 3

Defined social positions in a culture, containing specifications of behavior status, and relations with others. Examples include gender, age, and social class.

Question 4

Gender roles

Answer 4

Cultural beliefs about the kinds of work, appearance, and other aspects of behavior that distinguish women from men.

Question 5

Socialization

Answer 5

The process by which people acquire the behaviors and beliefs of the culture in which they live.

Question 6

Self-regulation

Answer 6

The capacity for exercising self- control in order to restrain one’s impulses and comply with social norms.

Question 7

Role preparation

Answer 7

An outcome of socialization that includes preparation for occupational roles, gender roles, and roles in institutions such as marriage and parenthood.

Question 8

Sources of meaning

Answer 8

The ideas and beliefs that people learn as part of socialization, indicating what is important, what is to be valued, what is to be lived for, and how to explain and offer consolation for the individual’s mortality.

Question 9

Bar Mitzvah

Answer 9

Jewish religious ritual for boys at age 13 that signifies the adolescents’ new responsibilities with respect to Jewish beliefs.

Question 10

Bat Mitzvah

Answer 10

Jewish religious ritual for girls at age 13 that signifies the adolescents’ new responsibilities with respect to Jewish beliefs.

Question 11

Interdependent self

Answer 11

A conception of the self typically found in collectivistic cultures, in which the self is seen as defined by roles and relationships within the group.

Question 12

Independent self

Answer 12

A conception of the self typically found in individualistic cultures, in which the self is seen as existing independently of relations with others, with an emphasis on independence, individual freedoms, and individual achievements.

Question 13

Broad socialization

Answer 13

The process by which persons in an individualistic culture come to learn individualism, including values of individual uniqueness, independence, and self- expression.

Question 14

Narrow socialization

Answer 14

The process by which persons in a collectivistic culture come to learn collectivism, including values of obedience and conformity.

Question 15

Custom complex

Answer 15

A customary practice and the beliefs, values, sanctions, rules, motives, and satisfactions associated with it; that is, a normative practice in a culture and the cultural beliefs that provide the basis for that practice.

Question 16

ontogenetic

Answer 16

Something that occurs naturally in the course of development as part of normal maturation; that is, it is driven by innate processes rather than by environmental stimulation or a specific cultural practice.

Question 17

First-generation families

Answer 17

The status of persons who were born in one country and then immigrated to another.

Question 18

Second-generation families

Answer 18

The status of persons who were born in the country they currently reside in but whose parents were born in a different country.

Question 19

Secular

Answer 19

Based on non-religious beliefs and values.

Question 20

Ramadan

Answer 20

A month in the Muslim year that commemorates the revelation of the Koran from God to the prophet Muhammad, requiring fasting from sunrise to sunset each day and refraining from all sensual indulgences.

Question 21

Kor’an

Answer 21

The holy book of the religion of Islam, believed by Muslims to have been communicated to Muhammad from God through the angel Gabriel.

Question 22

Social desirability

Answer 22

The tendency for people participating in social science studies to report their behaviour as they believe it would be approved by others rather than as it actually occurred.

Question 23

preconventional reasoning

Answer 23

In Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, the level in which moral reasoning is based on perceptions of the likelihood of external rewards and punishments.

Question 24

Conventional reasoning

Answer 24

In Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, the level of moral reasoning in which the person advocates the value of conforming to the moral expectations of others. What is right is whatever agrees with the rules established by tradition and by authorities.

Question 25

Postconventional reasoning

Answer 25

In Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, the level in which moral reasoning is based on the individual’s own independent judgments rather than on egocentric considerations or considerations of what others view as wrong or right.

Question 26

Worldview

Answer 26

A set of cultural beliefs that explain what it means to be human, how human relations should be conducted, and how human problems should be addressed.

Question 27

Templates

Answer 27

The basic human pattern of moral development for the three ethics, subject to variation depending on the beliefs and values of a specific culture.