Identity and Culture

• IDENTITY

  • It is the distinctive characteristic that defines an individual and is shaped by one’s membership to a particular group.
• SOCIAL GROUP

  •It is a collection of individuals who have relations with one another that make them interdependent to some significant degree
• Primary group is a small, intimate, and less

  specialized group whose members engage in face-to-face and emotion-based interactions over an extended period of time.
• Secondary groups are larger, less intimate, and more specialized groups where members engage in impersonal and objective oriented relationship for a limited time.
• In-group is a group to which one belongs, and with which one feels a sense of identity.
• Out-group is a group which one does not belong and to which he/she may feel a sense of competitiveness or hostility.
• REFERENCE GROUP

  • It is a group to which an individual compares himself/ herself  and is most significant and influential to the person’s behavior, and social attitude.
• NETWORK

  It is the structure of relationships between social actors or groups. These are the interactions, ties, and linkages between people, their groups, and the larger social institutions to which they belong to.
• CULTURE

  • It is an organized body of conventional understandings manifest in art and artifacts, which, persisting through tradition, characterizes a human group.
• MATERIAL CULTURE

  The concrete and tangible things. It includes physical objects/ artifacts – things that human beings create by altering the natural environment.
• NON-MATERIAL CULTURE

  It consists of words people use, the habits they follow, the ideas, customs and behavior, laws, techniques, lifestyle, knowledge.
• NORMS

  They are guides or models of behavior which tell us what is appropriate or inappropriate, what is right or wrong .
• LANGUAGE

  It is a system of symbols that have specific and

  arbitrary meaning in a given society. It is this

  symbolic communication that sets human beings apart from other species.
• SYMBOLS

  • It is anything that is used to stand for something else

  • It is attached a specific meaning to an object, gesture, sound or image
• VALUES

  They are culturally-defined standards for what is good or desirable, fair or just.
• FOLKWAYS

  They are norms that stem from and organize casual interaction, and that emerge out of repetition and routines. We engage in them to satisfy our daily needs, and they are most often unconscious in operation, though quite useful to the ordered functioning of society.
• MORES

  are stricter than folkways, as they determine what is considered moral and ethical behavior; they structure the difference between right and wrong.
• LAWS

  • It is a norm that is formally inscribed at the state or federal level and is enforced by police or other government agents.

  • Exist because the violation of the norms of behavior they govern would typically result in injury or harm to another person or are considered violations of the property rights of others.
• IMITATION

  The process of socialization plays a very important role in the development of an individual. As the child grows, he/she imitates the things around him/her --- language, behavior, values, etc.
• INDOCTRINATION

  This may take the form of formal teaching or training which may take place anywhere the individual finds himself/herself interacting with fellow humans.
• CONDITIONING

  The process where social norms that prevail in one’s culture is reinforced by giving a system of rewards and punishment found in the cultural system.
• ETHNOCENTRISM

  It is a universal phenomenon. This arises from the fact that cultures vary from one another and each culture defines reality differently. People judged other cultures in terms of their own ideas, norms and values.
• XENOCENTRISM

  It is a culturally-based tendency to value other cultures more highly than one’s own, which can materialize in a variety of ways.
• CULTURAL RELATIVISM

  • Also known as cultural relativity. Formulated by William Graham Sumner.

  • According to Sumner, there is no universal moral standards of right or wrong and good and bad for evaluating cultural phenomena.

  • Standards are relative to the culture in which they appear.
• DEVIANCE

  ▪Generally defined as “an act that violates social norms.”

  ▪An action that is perceived as violating widely shared moral values and norms of a society and group.
• COMPONENTS OF CULTURE

  1. NORMS
  2. LANGUAGE
  3. SYMBOLS
  4. VALUES
• FORMS OF SOCIAL NORMS

  1. FOLKWAYS
  2. MORES
  3. TABOO
  4. LAWS
• MODES OF ACQUIRING OF CULTURE

  1. IMITATION
  2. INDOCTRINATION
  3. CONDITIONING
• CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

  1. Culture is LEARNED.
  2. Culture is SHARED
  3. Culture is based on SYMBOLS
  4. Culture is INTEGRATED
  5. Culture is DYNAMIC
  6. Cultire is CUMULATIVE