Sociology chapter 3

3.5 American Culture in Perspective

1. Because American culture is so visible worldwide, the country's moral and political values also come under intense global scrutiny. We must realize that America may be viewed with suspicion and contempt by some other cultures because of the messages widely transmitted through American television shows, magazines, movies, and music.

3.2 Components of Culture

1. Material culture: any physical object that holds social meaning. a. Any physical thing that people create, use, or appreciate might be considered material culture. b. Nonmaterial culture: the ideas associated with a cultural group, including ways of thinking (beliefs, values, and assumptions) and ways of behaving (norms, interactions, and communication). i. Communication: signs, gestures, and language ii. Signs (or symbols): anything that conveys social meaning. iii. Gestures: signs that we make with our body; also known as "body language" and "nonverbal communication." iv. Language: a system of symbols people use to communicate with each other. v. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the idea that language structures thought and that ways of looking at the world are embedded in language.

3.3 Variations in Culture

1. Multiculturalism: honoring the diverse racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic backgrounds of various individuals and groups.

3.4 Cultural Change

1. Technological change a. Technology: material artifacts and the knowledge and techniques required to use them. b. Recent exponential change in material culture has drastically transformed social interaction.

3.4 Cultural Change

2. Cultural Diffusion, Imperialism, and Leveling a. Cultural diffusion is the dissemination of material and nonmaterial culture (tools, technology, beliefs, and behavior) from one group to another. i. Cultural diffusion usually occurs in the direction from more developed to less developed nations.

3.3 Variations in Culture

2. Dominant culture: mainstream culture, which consists of the values, norms, and practices of the most powerful groups; may produce hegemony. a. Hegemony: the cultural aspects of social control whereby the ideas of the dominant group are accepted by all.

3.2 Components of Culture

2. Values, norms, and sanctions a. Values: the set of shared beliefs about what a group of people considers worthwhile or desirable in life. i. For example, American values include equality and the individual freedoms of democracy. b. Norms: rules and guidelines regarding what kinds of behavior are acceptable. Norms can be divided into laws, folkways, mores, and taboos. i. Laws: Types of norms that are formally codified to provide an explicit statement about what is permissible or forbidden, legal or illegal in a given society. ii. Folkways: loosely enforced norms involving customs that ensure smooth social interaction and acceptance. iii. Mores: norms that carry great moral significance and involve severe repercussions for violators. iv. Taboos: norms ingrained so deeply that even thinking about violating them evokes strong feelings of disgust, horror, or revulsion. v. Moral holiday: a specified time period during which some norm violations are allowed. c. Sanctions: means of enforcing norms. i. Positive sanctions express approval for conformity; negative sanctions express disapproval for violations. ii. Social control: the mechanism that ensures that people behave in acceptable ways to some degree.

3.2 Components of Culture

3. Covid and Culture a. Covid causes new kinds of material culture (face masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer) and nonmaterial culture (stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, physical distancing, and work from home) to emerge. b. Norms generally derive from values. The new norms established by the pandemic revealed how American values can clash. c. In order to maintain social control, norms of behavior are enforced with sanctions. i. Sanctions included fines, as well as education or enforcement by police and other authorities.

3.3 Variations in Culture

3. Subcultures and countercultures a. Subculture: a particular social group that has a distinctive way of life; can be based on ethnicity, age, interests, or anything else that draws individuals together. i. Examples include senior citizens, college students, White Sox fans, firefighters, and Trekkers. b. Counterculture: a subgroup whose norms and values are incompatible with, or in direct opposition to, the dominant culture. i. Examples include eco-terrorists, computer hackers, modern-day polygamists, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Anonymous.

3.3 Variations in Culture

4. Culture wars: clashes that result from living in a diverse society; disagreement over which norms and values should be upheld.

3.3 Variations in Culture

5. Ideal vs. real culture a. Ideal culture: the norms, values, and patterns of behavior that members of a society believe should be observed in principle. b. Real culture: the norms, values, and patterns of behavior that actually exist within a society. c. There exists a distinction between the norms and values that members of a society believe, in principle, should be observed (ideal culture) and the patterns of behavior that actually exist (real culture).

Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism

a. "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" (Miner, 1956) provides insight into how people unfamiliar with American culture might perceive it. b. Culture shock: a sense of disorientation that occurs when entering a radically new social or cultural environment c. Ethnocentrism: the use of one's own culture as the standard to measure all other cultures and seeing anything outside one's own cultural experience as abnormal. d. Cultural relativism: seeing each culture on its own terms and being culturally sensitive.

How has culture been studied?

a. Sociologists typically study culture in the same society to which they belong. b. They study the mundane as well as the exceptional to learn about all aspects of culture.

3.4 Cultural Change

b. Cultural imperialism: the imposition of one culture's beliefs and practices on another culture through media and consumer products rather than by military force. i. One example is the proliferation of Western media and other cultural products into the rest of the world. ii. This concept views Western media and culture as an invading force that enters a country and overwhelms its native culture. c. Cultural leveling occurs when cultures that were once distinct become increasingly similar to each other.

3.1 What Is Culture?

the entire way of life of a group of people (including both material and nonmaterial elements) that acts as a lens through which one views the world and that is passed from one generation to the next. a. All people are totally dependent on culture to deal with the demands of life in a society. b. Culture is learned.