Chapter 3, Section 1

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Chapter 3, Section 1

• The Basis of Culture

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Culture and Society

• Culture consists of the knowledge, language,
  values, customs, and physical objects that are
  passed from generation to generation among
  members of a group
• Material culture physical objects
• Ex. US skyscrapers, fast-food restaurants, cell
  phones, cars
• Nonmaterial culture
• Ex. US beliefs, rules, customs, family systems,
  capitalist economy

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Culture and Society

• Culture helps explain human behavior
• Provides the blueprint that people in a society
  use to guide their relationships with others
• Society is a group of people who live in a
  defined territory and participate in a common
  culture
• Human cultural behavior must be learned

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Culture and Heredity

• Instincts are genetically inherited patterns of
  behavior
• Instincts are not enough to solve the problems
  that humans face
• How much of your personality is determined by
  genetics?
• This is sometimes called the nature vs. nurture
  argument

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Culture and Heredity

• About ½ of your personality traits are determined
  by your genetic makeup and ½ by environmental
  factors
• This has been determined using twin studies
• Reflexes genetically inherited automatic
  reactions to physical stimuli
• Drives genetically inherited impulses to reduce
  discomfort

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Culture and Heredity

• Genetically inherited personality traits,
  reflexes, and drives do NOT control human social
  behavior
• Culture channels the expression of these
  biological characteristics

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Sociobiology

• The study of the biological basis of human
  behavior
• Combines Darwins theory of natural selection
  with modern genetics
• The behaviors that best help people are
  biologically based and transmitted in genetic
  code
• Ex. Parental affection and care, friendship,
  reproduction, education of children

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Sociobiology

• Criticisms
• The importance placed n genetics could be used as
  a justification to label specific races as
  superior or inferior
• Too much variation in societies around the world
  for human behavior to be explained on strictly
  biological grounds

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Chapter 3, Section 2

• Language and Culture

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Symbols, Language, and Culture

• The creation and the transmission of culture
  depend heavily on the use of symbols
• The meaning of a symbol is not determined by its
  physical characteristics

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Symbols, Language, and Culture

• Language allows us to create culture
• We can pass our experiences, ideas, and knowledge
  to others using language

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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Language is our guide to reality
• How we think about a thing relates to the number
  and complexity of words available to describe
  that thing
• Hypothesis of linguistic relativity Our
  perceptions of the world depend in part on the
  particular language we have learned. Since
  languages differ, perceptions differ as well

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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• When something is important to a society, its
  language will have many words to describe it

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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Time is important to Americans nanosecond,
  millisecond, moment, minute, hour, era, century,
  year, etc.

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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Snow tlapa, tlacringit, kayi, tlapat, klin,
  naklin, tlamo, tlatim, tlaslo, tlapinti, kripya,
  tliyel, tliyelin, blotla, pactla

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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Cultures differ in many ways and these
  differences influence how their members
  experience the world

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Assignment

• Section 1 Assessment p. 75 (1 6)
• Section 2 Assessment p. 79 (1 3)
• Chapter 3 Vocabulary
• How Rude! handout