Ch. 3 Flashcards
(29 cards)
What is Culture?
The totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. It includes the ideas, values, and artifacts of groups of people.
What is Society?
A fairly large number of people who live in the same territory, are relatively, independent, of people outside their area, and participate in a common culture.
What is Sociobiology?
The systematic study of how biology affects human social behavior.
What is Cultural Universal?
A common practice or belief found in every culture.
What is Ethnocentrism?
The tendency to assume that one’s own culture is and way of life represents the norm or superior to all others.
What is Cultural Relativism?
The viewing of other people’s behavior from the perspective of one’s own culture.
What is Cultural Capital?
Non-economic goods, such as family background and education, which are reflected in a knowledge of language and the arts.
What is Language?
An abstract system of word meanings and symbols for all aspects of culture. Includes speech, written characters, numerals, symbols, and non-verbal gestures and expressions.
What are Symbols?
in context of language and communication
Gestures, objects, and words that form the basis of human communication.
What are Norms?
The established standards of behavior maintained by a society.
What are Formal Norms?
A norm that has been written down and that specifies strict punishment for violators.
What are Informal Norms?
A norm that is generally understood but not precisely recorded.
What is Innovation?
The process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture through discovery or invention.
What is an Invention?
The combination of existing cultural items into a form that did not exist before.
Norms are classified by their relative importance to society. What are the 2 ways Sociologists classify them?
Mores (pronounced mor-ays) and Folkways
What is a Mores?
A norm deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a society. Often because they embody the most cherished principles of a people.
What is a Folkway?
Norms governing everyday behavior. They play an important role in shaping the daily behavior of members of a culture.
What is Value (in context of culture)
A collective conception of what is considered good, desirable, and proper. –or bad, undesirable, and improper –in a culture.
What is a Subculture?
A segment of society that shares a distinctive pattern of customs, rules, and traditions that differs from the pattern of the larger society.
What is Diffusion?
The process by which a cultural item spreads from group to group or society to society.
What is Cultural Lag?
A period of maladjustment when the non-material culture is still struggling to adapt to new material conditions.
What is Cultural Shock?
The feeling of surprise and disoriantation that people experience when they encounter cultural practices that are different from their own.
What is Argot?
Specialized language used by members of a group or subculture.
What is Counterculture?
A subculture that deliberatly opposes certain aspects of the larger culture.
