Chapter 2: Vocabulary

Question 1

beliefs:

Answer 1

mental acceptance or conviction that certain things are true or real

Question 2

counterculture:

Answer 2

group that strongly rejects dominant societal values/norms; seek alternative lifestyles

Question 3

cultural imperialism:

Answer 3

the extensive infusion of one nation’s culture into other nations.

Question 4

cultural lag:

Answer 4

William Ogburn’s term for a gap between the technical development of a society and its moral and legal institutions.

Question 5

cultural relativism:

Answer 5

belief that the behaviors and customs of any culture must be viewed and analyzed by the culture’s own standards.

Question 6

cultural universals:

Answer 6

customs and practices that occur across all societies.

Question 7

culture:

Answer 7

knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next in a human group or society.

Question 8

culture shock:

Answer 8

disorientation that people feel when they encounter cultures radically different from their own and believe they cannot depend on their own taken-for-granted assumptions about life.

Question 9

ethnocentrism:

Answer 9

the practice of judging all other cultures by one’s own culture.

Question 10

folkways:

Answer 10

informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated without serious consequences within a particular culture.

Question 11

high culture:

Answer 11

classical music, opera, ballet, live theater, and other activities usually patronized by elite audiences.

Question 12

language:

Answer 12

a set of symbols that expresses ideas and enables people to think and communicate with one another.

Question 13

laws:

Answer 13

formal, standardized norms that have been enacted by legislatures and are enforced by formal sanctions.

Question 14

material culture:

Answer 14

the physical or tangible creations that members of a society make, use, and share.

Question 15

mores:

Answer 15

strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations that may not be violated without serious consequences in a particular culture.

Question 16

nonmaterial culture:

Answer 16

the abstract or intangible human creations of society that influence people’s behavior.

Question 17

norms:

Answer 17

established rules of behavior or standards of conduct.

Question 18

popular culture:

Answer 18

activities, products, and services that are assumed to appeal primarily to members of the middle and working classes.

Question 19

sanctions:

Answer 19

rewards for appropriate behavior or penalties for inappropriate behavior.

Question 20

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

Answer 20

the proposition that language shapes the view of reality of its speakers.

Question 21

subculture:

Answer 21

a category of people who share distinguishing attributes, beliefs, values, and/or norms that set them apart in some significant manner from the dominant culture.

Question 22

symbol:

Answer 22

anything that meaningfully represents something else.

Question 23

taboos:

Answer 23

mores so strong that their violation is considered to be extremely offensive and even unmentionable.

Question 24

technology:

Answer 24

the knowledge, techniques, and tools that allow people to transform resources into usable forms, and the knowledge and skills required to use them after they are developed.

Question 25

value contradictions:

Answer 25

values that conflict with one another or are mutually exclusive.

Question 26

values:

Answer 26

collective ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or undesirable in a particular culture.