Sociology Chapter 2

counterculture

A special type of subculture is the :

the glue that holds a society together

According to the functionalist perspective culture, and especially popular culture, forms:

rapid social and technological change, growth of cities, widespread economic inequality, the spread of bureaucracy, improved health and longer life expectancy, and a rise in the population's general level of education

Characteristics of industrial societies include:

-Invention -Discovery -Diffusion

Cultural changes are set in motion in three ways:

the survival of a society by providing ways for people to meet their various needs.

Culture also contributes to:

material objects (artifacts, tools, and technology) developed by individuals in a society

Culture includes:

behavior that is the result of biological inheritance.

Culture is separated from:

climate, level of technology, population, and geography.

Cultures adapt to meet different conditions such as:

Examples of Nonmaterial Culture

Customs Beliefs Philosophies Governments Patterns of communication

produced, distributed, and used.

Economy defines how goods will be

teaching new recruits to become productive members of society.

Education is responsible for:

sustain larger populations

Factories, mass production, and assembly lines produce large quantities of goods used to:

adult sexual behavior and the replacement of societal members while being responsible for the rearing of children.

Family regulates :

-Population -Language -Technology -Social Structure -Ideology

Five Basic Components of Every Human Society

Examples of Material Culture

Food items Houses Factories Raw materials

social unity and stability, as well as providing a common identity to members of the culture

Having shared norms and values contributes to:

the values and norms and beliefs of a culture.

In every social situation, the parties to an interaction reinterpret

of their need for raw materials and workers

Industrial societies disrupt other types of societies because:

What is a Counterculture?

It deliberately opposes some aspects of the larger culture.

word meanings and symbols for all aspects of culture

Language is an abstract system of

their power to maintain and enlarge their privilege.

Marx and other conflict theorists have argued that the most powerful groups in a society use:

power and preserves social order.

Politics, or the government, defines the legitimate use of

purpose

Religion provides and maintains a sense of:

developed to create and maintain the privileged position of the elite or dominant group(s) in that society

Social conflict perspective theorists argue that the cultural values and norms of a society are:

Industrial societies

Societies that use mechanized systems of production to meet their economic survival

Cultural Lag

The fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system

diffusion

The spread of objects or ideas from one society to another

William Ogburn (1964)

This person stated that technology moves quickly, generating new elements of material culture faster than non-material culture can keep up

-Influence people's behavior -Criteria for evaluating actions of other -May change over time

Values Component:

our options and behavior

Values guide and mold:

what we should believe, regardless of any evidence for or against them.

Values tell

subculture

a group or groups of people with distinct sets of behavior and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture of which they are a part.

A society is

a grouping of individuals, which is characterized by common interests and may have distinctive culture and institutions

Body language

a phrase coined in popular literature to denote the exchange of meanings through gestures, body postures, and facial expressions.

Culture

a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs, and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behavior of individuals in a society.

Folkways are:

a society's web of cultural rituals, traditions, and routines.

Language

an element of culture that contributes to every aspect of human relationships. It is the symbolic component of culture.

Symbol

anything that carries a specific meaning recognized by people in the same culture.

Sanctions are:

are penalties or rewards for behavior concerning a norm.

Shared Culture

by the members of a society. There is no "culture of one."

Horticultural societies

cultivate plants using very simple technology such as digging sticks and the slash-and-burn method for their economic survival.

Symbolic Culture

culture, language, and thought are based on symbols and symbolic meanings.

cultural universals

customs, traits, and behaviors that occur in every known culture (Radcliffe-Brown, 1952)

Laws are:

found in highly organized societies. They are formalized and precisely delimited norms.

Internalized Culture

habitual, taken-for-granted, and perceived as "natural."

Mores are:

moral judgments that define wrong and right behavior, the allowed and the disallowed, what is wanted and not wanted within a culture

Agricultural societies

more technologically advanced than horticultural or pastoral societies. They use machinery or animal power to tend their crops. They also use irrigation to control the amount of water on their fields.

Arbitrary Culture

not based on "natural laws" external to humans, but created by humans.

Spoken language

patterns of sounds with meanings attached to each. Spoken language facilitates teaching and communication.

Patterned Culture

people in a society live and think in ways that form definite patterns.

Learned Culture

process of learning one's culture is called enculturation

Social structure

refers to social entities or social groups in relation to each other, to relatively enduring patterns of behavior and relationship within societies, and to social institutions, organizations, values and norms, statuses, roles, and norms embedded into societies in such a way that they shape and are shaped by the behavior of individuals within a society.

Nonmaterial culture

refers to the intangible parts of a culture such as ideas, values, goals, beliefs, rules of behavior, and language.

Material culture

refers to the tangible objects that members of a society use, share, and create.

Ethnocentrism

refers to the tendency to assume that one's own culture constitutes the norm and is superior to all other cultures

Norms are:

rules that are socially enforced

Social institutions

sets of statuses, roles, organizations, norms, and beliefs designed to meet people's basic needs.

Hunting and gathering societies

small, nomadic, and highly egalitarian. In order to meet their needs, they must limit their population, move around frequently within their territory, and share the bounty of their hunting and gathering

the everyday interactions of people in a society

symbolic interactionist perspective, which focuses on the microlevel, culture is created, maintained, and changed through:

Culture shock

the anxiety produced when a person moves to a completely new environment.

Written language

the graphic recording of spoken language that facilitates the preservation of learning and the legacy of culture

Mutually Constructed Culture

through a constant process of social interaction.

Cultural relativism

views people's behavior from the context of their own culture.