Chapter 3 Flashcards
(27 cards)
Culture
Totality of learned, socially transmitted customs,knowledge, material, objects, and behavior (including ideas, values,customs, and artifacts of groups of people)
Society
Largest form of human group
Culture industry
Worldwide media industry that standardizes goods and services demanded by consumers
Material culture
Physical or technological aspects of our daily lives
Nonmaterial culture
Values, beliefs, assumptions
Values
Culturally defined standards which serve as broad guideline for social living
Beliefs
Specific statements which people hold to be true
Norms
Rules and expectations by which society guides the behavior of its members
Mores
Norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance
Folkways
Norms for routine, casual interaction
Doxa
Things so deeply internalized that they come to be seen as natural
Characteristics of culture
Culture is uniquely shared, culture is lesrned
Cultural transmission
Passing of cultural traits from one generation to the next
Symbols
Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share culture
Language
A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with each other
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language
Cultural integration
Close relationship among various elements of a cultural system
Cultural lag
Period of maladjustment when an element of culture changes and disrupts a system
Change caused by innovation
Introducing a new idea or object
Change caused by diffusion
Spread of cultural traits
Cultural universal
Certain common practices and beliefs that all societies have developed
Ethnocentrism
Tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way or life represents the norm or is superior to others
High culture
Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite
Popular culture
Cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population
