Culture and society

• Culture – way of life shared by the members of a community, or a

“tool kit” that provides us with the equipment necessary to deal with
the common problems of everyday life, transmitted from generation
to generation, and from individual to individual;
• Society – population that shares the same territory and is bound
together by economic and political ties, without necessarily sharing
the same culture.
• Culture resides essentially in nontangible forms such as language,
values, and symbolic meanings, but it also includes technology and
material objects:
- Nonmaterial culture consists of abstract creations/intangible objects,
which influence the behaviour of individuals (language, values, rules,
knowledge, beliefs, preferences and meanings shared by the
members of a society);
- Material culture includes the physical/tangible objects that a society
produces (tools, buildings, sculptures, toys, clothes, etc.).
- Material culture depends on the nonmaterial culture for meaning.
 Bases of Human Behavior

• Why do people behave as they do? What

determines human behavior?
- Biology: biological factors help explain what is
common to humankind across societies;
- Culture: cultural factors explain why people
and societies differ from one another.
 Cultural Perspective on Human
Behaviour
• Culture is problem solving
• Although some problems are universal, the solutions
people adopt vary considerably;
• Whenever people face a recurrent problem, cultural
patterns will evolve to provide a ready-made answer.
• Culture is relative
• Cultural relativism requires that each cultural trait be
evaluated in the context of its own culture, because no
practice is universally good or universally bad;
• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to judge other cultures
according to the norms and values of one’s own culture.
• Xenocentrism - the preference for foreign ideas and
products, signifying the rejection of norms and values
of a group or a society.
 Cultural Perspective
• Culture is a social product – culture is a social, not a
biological, product. The immense cultural diversity that
characterizes human societies results not from unique gene
pools but from cultural evolution.
• Some aspects of culture are produced deliberately, while
others develop gradually through social interaction (such as
language, fashion, and ideas about right and wrong). But all
these aspects of culture are human products; none of them is
instinctive;
• People learn culture, and, as they use it, they change it;
• Culture depends on language. A culture without language
cannot effectively transmit either practical knowledge (such
as “fire is good” and “don’t use electricity in the bathtub”) or
ideas (such as “God exists”) from one generation to the next.
 Biological Perspective on Human
Behaviour
• The biological perspective starts from the premise
that there are some basic similarities in cultures,
such as the universal existence of the family,
religion, cooperation, and warfare.
• Because the environment in which humans live today
is rather cultural than natural, we have evolved
biological predispositions toward cultural patterns that
enable our genes to continue after us.
• Only by recognizing and taking into account the joint
effects of culture and biology can we fully understand
human behaviour.
 Cultural universals
• All individuals have the same basic needs (they need food,
shelter, clothing) and, therefore, they engage in similar activities,
which ensure their evolutionary success;
• Anthropologist George Murdock (1945) has identified more than
70 such cultural universals – customs and practices found in
every society – and included them into several categories:
- Physical appearance: body ornaments, clothing, etc.;
- Activities: sport, dance, games, etc.;
- Social institutions: family, law, religion;
- Customary practices: folklore, gifts system, culinary traditions,
etc.
• Although such customs and general practices are present in all
cultures, their specific forms differ from one group to another and
from a period to another, reflecting the characteristics of the
natural and social environment.
 The Evolutionary Sociology
- Culture and biology do not represent two separate spheres that can interact
to a certain degree, but culture is itself, at least partially, biological;
- There is a clear distinction between :
- Transmitted or epidemiological culture – culture that travels from mind to
mind by processes of transmission, analogous, but not identical, to
Darwinian genetic evolution;
- Evoked culture – refers to phenomena that are triggered in some groups
more than in others because of differing environmental conditions. Before
being transmitted, culture must be „created” by the members of a group
or society, and culture is the result of the interaction between genetic
predisposition and natural environment aimed at adaptation;
- Culture represents the main way of individuals’ adaptation to their
environment (natural selection has favoured adaptation through social
learning to the detriment of adaptation through genetic mutation/change);
- Today, the environment is created by individuals, thus nature and nurture
cannot be separated.
 Elements of Culture
1. Symbols = are anything (signs, objects, images) that
meaningfully represents something else (a notions, an idea, a
sentiment, etc.);
• They help us to communicate ideas (love, hate, peace, war)
because they express abstract concepts with visible objects
(gestures, clothing, etc.), and also transmit knowledge or
information (a siren is a symbol that denotes an emergency
situation and sends the message to clear the way immediately);
• Culture could not exist without symbols because there would be
no shared meanings among people;
• Symbols may be universal or specific to a given culture, having
special meaning to individuals who share that culture but not
necessarily to other people:
- A flag can stand for patriotism, nationalism, school spirit, or
religious beliefs held by members of a group or society;
- The clothes we wear or the goods we have are status symbols.
 Elements of culture
2. Language = is a set of symbols that express ideas and
enable people to think and communicate with one another;
• The essence of culture is to transmit and share meanings;
• Language has three distinct relationships to culture:
- Language embodies culture – language includes the
values and meanings of a society as well as its rituals,
ceremonies, stories, and prayers. Until you share the language
of a culture, you cannot fully participate in it;
- Language is a symbol of culture – a common language is
often the most obvious outward sign that people share a
common culture (i.e.: national cultures), while distinct
languages may symbolise a sub-group, a subculture;
- Language creates a framework for culture – the linguistic
relativity hypothesis (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) argues that the
grammar, structure, and categories embodied in each
language influence how its speakers see reality (language
does not simply communicate reality, but creates it).
 Elements of culture
3. Values = shared ideas about desirable goals, collective ideas
about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or
undesirable in a particular culture;
- Values do not dictate which behaviours are appropriate and which
ones are not, but they provide us with the criteria by which we
evaluate people, objects, and events and justify our own
behaviours;
• General values (happiness è happy marriage) and specific values
(cooperation among husbands);
• Universal values (security) and particular values (security through
children/savings/education);
- Value Contradictions - are values that conflict with one another or
are mutually exclusive (achieving one makes it difficult, if not
impossible, to achieve another), and they exist because some
societies are sufficiently permissive to accept diverse
behaviours/actions (i.e.: individualism versus collectivism,
humanitarianism versus hard work and personal achievements).
 Values and behaviour
What is the relationship between values and human
behaviour?
• Ideal culture = refers to the values and standards of
behaviour that people in a society admit, promote and
profess to hold;
• Real culture = refers to the values and standards of
behaviour that people actually follow;
• For example, we may claim to be law-abiding (ideal
cultural value) but we may regularly drive over the
speed limit (real cultural behaviour), and think of
ourselves as “good citizens”.
• In every society a gap will always exists between ideal
culture and real culture.
 Elements of Culture
4. Norms = are established and common rules of behaviour or
standards of conduct, that specify what people ought or ought not to
do:
- Prescriptive norms state what behaviour is appropriate or acceptable
(i.e., persons are expected to pay their taxes, to open a door for a
person carrying a heavy load);
- Proscriptive norms state what behaviour is inappropriate or
unacceptable (i.e., laws that prohibit us from driving over the speed
limit and “good manners” that deter you from texting during class).
• A norm is a model of action that should be applied in certain
circumstances and:
- Is consciously assumed by the individual (automatic reflexes or any
other type of habits are not norms);
- Has a super-individual meaning and effects;
- Is explicitly stated as a super-individual model of behaviour;
- Does not require an impossible behaviour or a necessary behaviour.
 Types of Norms
- Norms vary enormously in their importance both to
individuals and to society and, in general, we distinguish
between three kinds of norms:
• Folkways – are informal norms or everyday customs that
may be violated without serious consequences within a
particular culture; they are norms that are simply the
customary, normal, habitual ways a group does things.
- Permanent traditions (such as fireworks on the Fourth of
July) or passing fads and fashions (such as wearing
friendship or breast-cancer bracelets);
- They carry no moral value (if you choose to violate
folkways by having hamburgers for breakfast and
oatmeal for dinner, or by sleeping on the floor and
dyeing your hair purple, others may consider you
eccentric, weird, or crazy, but they will not brand you
immoral or criminal).
 Types of Norms
- Mores – are strongly held norms with moral connotations
that may not be violated without serious consequences in a
particular culture;
- Because mores are based on cultural values and are
considered to be crucial to the well-being of the group,
violators are subject to more severe negative sanctions
(such as ridicule, marginalisation, or ostracism) than are
those who fail to adhere to folkways;
- The strongest mores are referred to as taboos - mores so
strong that their violation is considered to be extremely
offensive and even unmentionable.
- Laws – are formal, standardized norms that have been
enacted by legislatures and are enforced by formal
sanctions;
- The laws either reflect popular values, or they try to change
the existing norms or behaviours (new laws forbidding
driving while texting).
 Social Control
• From our earliest childhood, we learn to observe norms
(first within our families and later within peer groups, at
school, and in the larger society) è voluntary
conformation/norm internalisation (after a period of time,
following the norms becomes so habitual that we can
hardly imagine living any other way; through
indoctrination, learning, and experience, they become so
much a part of our lives that we may not even be aware of
them as constraints);
• No society relies completely on this voluntary compliance,
however, and all encourage conformity by the use of
sanctions:
• Positive sanctions: rewards for conformity;
• Negative sanctions: punishments for nonconformity.
 Sanctions and social deviance
• Sanctions:
• Formal – the legal codes identify specific penalties, fines, and
punishments applied by the institutions of the state to individuals
who violate formal laws;
• Informal – are based on the folkways and mores of a society and
are applied by the group/society:
- Positive sanctions: affection, approval, recognition and
inclusion.
- Negative sanctions: disapproval, exclusion, ostracism.
• Relative to our norms and our behaviour, we can talk about:
- Normative behaviour (what we are supposed to do);
- Actual behaviour (what we actually do).
• The discrepancy between actual behaviour and normative
behaviour is called social deviance and is a major area of
sociological research and inquiry.
 The Role of Culture for the
Individual
Culture helps people satisfy their:
- Biological needs (survival and reproduction);
- Instrumental needs (education and law/order);
- Integrative needs (religion and art).
 The Role of Culture for Individual and
Society
At the individual level:
- Culture is essential for survival and reproduction;
- We rely on culture because we are not born with the
information or knowledge necessary for our survival (how to
take care of ourselves, how to behave, dress, eat, who can
we trust, etc.);
- We are born, nevertheless, with mental capacities necessary
for learning culture through interaction, observation and
imitation;
At the societal level:
- Culture is essential for the survival of a society;
- Culture is the „common denominator” that makes our actions
intelligible for the group; as such, in every society we will
find a system for elaborating and imposing the rules.