Cultural Concepts and Variations

Module 8, Lesson 2(pages 229-232)

Other Cultural Concepts

Ethnocentrism A feeling that one’s own particular way of life is superior and right and that all other culture are inferior and defective

Tends to judge other cultures in terms of values and norms of one’s own culture

Gives rise to the erroneous concept of perfunctorily regarding one’s culture as superior and right in comparison with other cultures

Cultural Relativism Refers to the notion that each culture should be evaluated according to its own merits and standards rather than from the standpoint or bases of a different culture

Xenocentrism The belief that what is foreign is best in terms of one’s lifestyle, products, or ideas

Temporocentrism The belief that one’s

own time is more important than that of the past or future

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Subculture Group or category within a society that shares in the general culture but maintains distinctive ways of thinking, acting, and feeling.

Usually found in a big and complex society

Counter-culture A subculture that has value and norms that sharply contradict those of the larger society

Culture Universal

Common cultural elements that are found within all known societies

Include norms, laws, language, beliefs, and values

Law

Beliefs

Language

Culture Shock The experience of disorientation and frustration that occurs when individuals find themselves among those who do not share their fundamental premises

Culture Lag The inability of a given society to adapt immediately to another culture as a result of the disparity in the rate of change between the material and non-material elements of culture

Cultural Integration Concerned with adoption of a

mass consumer culture where everything from fashion to sport, music to television, becomes integrated into the nationalculture, often without challenge

CulturalDiversity

From language to appearance, from great ideas to good manners, from laws to values, the cultures of the world offer what it seems like an infinite number of alternatives.

The variation of culture in some ways with another culture which guides human behavior

Conditions That Affect Cultural Variations

Environment• A person’s surroundings play a major role in shaping his/her culture

• Environmental conditions greatly affect people who must therefore adapt to these conditions in order to survive

Isolation• A culture

continues on its own course, unaltered and uncontaminated by other cultures

• The absence of contact with other societies tends to perpetuate the patterns that have been adopted

Technology• The

technology used by a society determines its social structure that leads to changes in culture

Cultural Themes• Based on themes,

culture tends to select and reinterpret the new ideas that are meaningful to people

• If people find no point of correspondence between the new ideas and their usual ones, the new ideas are abandoned

Diffusion

• Involves the borrowing or transferring of certain elements of one culture to another culture when the former comes into contact with the latter

Modes of Acquiring Culture

Imitation Human action by which one tends to duplicate more or less exactly the behavior of others

Indoctrination

Takes the form of formal teaching or training which may happen anywhere.

Conditioning

Through norms prevailing in one’s social and cultural milieu, and through the process of conditioning, the individual acquires certain patterns of beliefs, values, behaviors, and actions. This process is further reinforce by a system of reward and punishment in the cultural environment

Acculturation A process by which societies with different cultures are modified through fairly close and long continued contact

Amalgamation The intermarriage of persons coming from different cultural groups resulting in some kind of biological fusion.