Group-1-UCSP

• Three important aspects of culture

  • Shared
  • Socially learned
  • Patterns of behavior
• Shared culture


  Culture is collective - it is shared by some group of people
• Diffusion


  The process by which an idea, an invention, or some other cultural item is borrowed from a foreign source
• Socially learned


  The process by which individuals acquire knowledge from others in the groups to which they belong, as a normal part of childhood
• Enculturation or socialization


  The process by which infants and children socially learn the culture of those around them
• Social learning

  The main way children learn culture is by observation, imitation, communication, and inference
• Patterns of behavior


  Behavioral regularities or patterns of behavior within a group that shares culture
• Behavioral patterns of the Yanomamo


  • Demanding and aggressive, slight insults often meet with violent responses, quarreling men may duel by engaging in a chest-pounding contest, serious quarrels call for clubs with which men bash one another on the head, fathers encourage their sons to strike them
• Behavioral patterns of the Semai


  • Refusal to express anger and hostility, adults should never strike another, seldom physically punish their children
• Innovation


  The process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture
• Forms of innovation

  • Discovery
  • Invention
• Discovery


  Involves making known or sharing the existence of some aspect of reality
• Invention


  Existing cultural items are combined into a form that did not exist before
• Globalization


  The world-wide integration of government policies, cultures, social movements, and financial markets through trade and the exchange of ideas
• Diffusion


  The process by which a cultural item spreads from group to group or society
• McDonaldization


  The process through which the principles of the fast-food restaurant have come to dominate certain sectors of society, both in the United States and throughout the world
• Technology


  Cultural information about how to use the material resources of the environment to satisfy human needs and desires