Culture (More Stuff)

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Culture(More Stuff)
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Review

• Tradition!
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQPFuuLVoCrs

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Thomas Theorem

• Def of situation
• Remem- bered norm
• Behavior

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Relationship Between Cultural Values and Norms

• Norms often are specific reflections of abstract
  values
• We value friendship we acknowledge our friends
• Norms can tell how to handle conflicting values
• How much to contribute to church, United Way
• Q What values are involved here?

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Technical norms

• Some norms may have no direct link to values
• Some reflect value of having standards
• Reduces uncertainty

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Ideal vs Real Culture I

• Ideal culture -- what people and institutions
  should do, according to cultural norms and values
• Real culture -- what people and institutions
  actually do
• Ideal and real cultures are usually not the same

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Ideal vs Real Culture II

• Tension between ideal and real can lead to
  changes in either or both
• Similar phenomena occur in settings smaller than
  entire cultures
• informal vs formal structures in organizations
• Secularization/revival in religious denominations
• theory vs practice in general

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Secularization and Revival

• Successful churches over time tend to get
  involved in non-spiritual issues
• Property, training and supervising employees,
  fund raising
• Secularization
• Loss of spiritual focus can lead to revival
  movements
• Trying to restore spiritual focus

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Culture and Predictability

• Culture helps make social world predictable
• We have psychological need for predictability
• If we want something, culture tells how to get it
• When others are doing wild stuff, culture can
  help explain

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Predictability and Norm Following

• The more we follow norms, the more predictable
  our world
• If we are unpredictable, others dont know what
  to think or do
• If we follow rules, others know what we are doing
  and what they should do
• This, therefore, is another reason we follow the
  rules doing so makes our world more predictable

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Functional Prerequisite

• Definition a functional prerequisite is an
  outcome that is necessary for the continued
  existence of a society.

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Five Functional Prerequisites

• Five Functional Prerequisites
• Meet biological needs of members
• Obtain new members (recruitment)
• Train members (socialization)
• Resist environmental threats
• Maintain social integration

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Culture and Functional Prerequisites

• Culture establishes mechanisms for meeting
  functional prerequisites
• Also provides motivations to participate
• Often involve social institutions

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Social Institutions

• Social Institutions relatively permanent
  patterns or clusters of specialized roles,
  groups, organizations, customs, and activities
  devoted to meeting fundamental social needs
  (Stark 8th 669)
• Like parts of the body

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Social Institutions II

• Institutions themselves can often be analyzed as
  being composed of smaller institutions
• Institutions have multiple outcomes. Different
  institutions often overlap in their outcomes
• Social problems often revolve around difficulties
  institutions are having in producing expected
  outcomes

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Major Social Institutions

• Family
• Economy
• Religion
• Political Order
• Education
• Others medicine, military, arts,
  sports/recreation, holidays, Super Bowl

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More Culture Terms

• High culture- set of cultural products, mainly in
  the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture
• Cultural Lag- a situation when one institution
  has not adapted to changes in another
• Cultural Universals- patterns found in all known
  societies