Culture & Human Adaptation

CULTURE
Refers to customs, beliefs, values, knowledge and skills that guide people's behavior
Knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from
one generation to the next in a human group or society
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE:
Culture is learned
Not biological/inherited
Non-instinctive- We are not genetically programmed to learn one."
Learned from families, peers, institutions and media.
Enculturation- process of learning culture
Culture is shared.
"Allows us to act in socially appropriate ways and predict how others will behave"
Not homogenous (the same)
Multiple cultures exist
Culture is based on symbols.
Symbols vary among cultures.
They only have meaning when people of a certain culture agree on their use.
Culture is integrated.
The various parts of a culture are interconnected.
To learn a certain culture, one must study all of its parts and not only a few.
Culture is dynamic.
Cultures interact and change.
They exchange ideas and symbols.
Change-needed to adapt to changing environments.
If one component changes, the entire system must adapt.
CLASSIFICATION OF CULTURE:

A. Material Culture
Consists of the physical or tangible creations that members of a society make, use, and share
Example: clothing, tools, shelter
B. Nonmaterial Culture
Consists of the abstract or intangible human creations of society that influences people's behavior
Example: language, beliefs, values, political system
COMPONENTS OF CULTURE:

1. Symbols
Anything that meaningfully represents something else
Example: heart stands for love, a dove stands for peace
2. Language
A set of symbols that expresses ideas and enables people to think and communicate with one another.
a) Verbal language spoken
b) Nonverbal language written or gestured
3. Values
Collective ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or undesirable in a particular
culture
4. Norms
Established rules of behavior or standards of conduct
a) Folkways informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated without serious consequences
within a particular culture
b) Mores strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations that may not be violated without
serious consequences in a particular culture
c) Laws formal, standardized norms that have been enacted by legislatures and are enforced by formal
sanctions
FACTORS INFLUENCING CULTURAL ARRANGEMENTS AND CHANGES
Culture does not remain static.
Throughout history, humans have replaced or altered customary behaviors and attitudes as their needs have
changed.
Societies continually experience cultural change at both material and nonmaterial levels.
All parts of the culture do not change at the same pace. When a change occurs in the material culture,
nonmaterial culture must adapt. This rate of change is uneven, resulting in a gap.
This disparity is referred to as Cultural Lag, the gap between the technical development of a society and
its moral and legal institutions. It occurs when material culture changes faster than nonmaterial culture.

The Factors Which Influence Changes in Culture
Natural Environment a change in the natural environment such as a change in climate, the kinds of food people
eat, the clothes they wear, and the way they make a living will be affected, thus their culture will also change.
Discovery process of learning about something previously unknown or unrecognized. It is any addition to
knowledge.
Ex: Vaccine, True shape of the Earth
Invention process of reshaping existing cultural items into a new form. It is a new application of knowledge.
Unconscious Invention (Accidental Juxtaposition) - the results of literally dozens of tiny initiatives by
unconscious inventors.
Intentional Invention - arise out of deliberate attempts to produce a new idea or objects. Such innovations
are obvious responses to perceived needs.
Discoveries and inventions, which may originate inside or outside a society, are ultimately the sources of
all culture change. But they do not necessarily lead to change.
If an invention or discovery is ignored, no change in culture results. Only when society accepts an
invention or discovery and uses it regularly can we begin to speak of culture change.
The speed of accepting an innovation may depend partly on how new behaviors and ideas are typically
transmitted in a society.

Technology refers to the knowledge, techniques and tools that allow people to transform resources into usable forms
and the knowledge and skills required to use what is developed.
Ex: Introduction of the Printing Press, Advent of Computers and Electronic Communications
The pace of technological change has increased rapidly in the past 150 years as contrasted with the 4,000
years prior to that.

Diffusion transmission of cultural items or social practices from one group of society to another through such
means as exploration, war, media, tourism and immigration.
Patterns of Diffusion
Direct Contact - elements of a societys culture may first be taken up by neighboring societies and then
gradually spread farther and farther afield.
Intermediate Contact it occurs through the agency of third parties.
Stimulus Diffusion knowledge of a trait belonging to another culture stimulates the invention or
development of a local equivalent.

Diffusion is a selective process. Not all cultural traits are borrowed as readily as the ones mentioned, nor do
they usually expand in neat, ever-widening circles.
Diffusion is selective because cultural traits differ in the extent to which they can be communicated.
Diffusion is selective because the overt form of a particular trait, rather than its function or meaning, frequently
seems to determine how the trait will be received.

Acculturation - refers to the changes that occur when different cultural groups come into intensive contact. It is
often used to describe a situation in which one of the societies in contact is much more powerful than the other.

Even though customs are not genetically inherited, cultural adaptation may be similar to biological adaptation in
one major respect. Traits (cultural or genetic) that are more likely to be reproduced (learned or inherited) are
likely to become more frequent in a population over time.

Ethnogenesis
The process of creating a new culture in the aftermath of violent events such as depopulation, relocation,
enslavement, and genocide.
Example: Maroon Societies

Cultural Diversity wide range of cultural differences found between and within nations.
Homogenous Societies include people who share a common culture and who are typically from similar
social, religious, political and economic backgrounds.
Heterogenous Societies include people who are dissimilar in regard to social characteristics such as
religion, income or race/ethnicity.

Globalization - the widespread flow of people, information, technology, and capital over the earths surface - has
minimized cultural diversity in some respects, but it hasnt eliminated it.
Subculture group of people who share a distinctive set of cultural beliefs and behaviors that differ in some
significant way from that of the larger society.
Counterculture a group that strongly rejects dominant societal values and norms and seeks alternative lifestyles.
Culture Shock disorientation that people feels when they encounter cultures radically different from their own
and believe they cannot depend on their own taken-for-granted assumptions about life.
Ethnocentrism practice of judging all other cultures by ones own culture. It is based on the assumption that ones
own way of life is superior.
Cultural Relativism belief that the behaviors and customs of any culture must be viewed and analyzed by the
cultures own standards.

VIEWS/ATTITUDES TOWARD CULTURE
High Culture & Popular Culture a distinction between different cultural forms.
o High Culture consists of activities that only the elite have the resources to appreciate.
(ex. classical music, opera, ballet, live theater, etc.)
o Popular Culture make up activities assumed to primarily involve the middle and working class.
(ex. rock concerts, spectator sports, movies, television soap operas, etc.)
Fads are activities that are extensively imitated by large numbers of people, and are
often temporary in nature.
Object fads - are items that people purchase despite the fact that they have little
use or intrinsic value.
Activity fads - include pursuits such as body piercing, surng the Internet,
and the free hugs campaign, wherein individuals offer hugs to strangers in a
public setting as a random act of kind-ness to make someone feel better.
Idea fads - such as New Age ideologies including The Secret, as advocated
by Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities.
Personality fads - those surrounding celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Tiger
Woods, 50 Cent, and Brad Pitt.
Fashion - a currently valued style of behavior, thinking, or appearance that is longer
lasting and more widespread than a fad.
* cultural imperialism - the extensive infusion of one nations culture into other nations
Sociological Analysis of Culture
1. Functionalist Perspective - are based on the assumption that society is a stable, orderly system with
interrelated parts that serve specic functions.
2. Conflict Perspective - based on the assumption that social life is a continuous struggle in which
members of powerful groups seek to control scarce resources.
3. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective - engage in a microlevel analysis that views society as the sum of
all peoples interactions.
4. Postmodernist Perspective argues that there is no one true reality but diverse interpretations of it. It
focuses how societies use language to construct their own realities.








EVOLUTION OF SOCIETIES
1. Hunting-Gathering or Foraging

The primary institution is the family, which decides how food is to be shared and how children are to be
socialized, and which provides for the protection of its members.

They tend to be small, with fewer than fifty members.

They tend to be nomadic, moving to new areas when the current food supply in a given area has been
exhausted.

Members display a high level of interdependence.

Labor division is based on sex: men hunt, and women gather

2. Horticulture
Villages (less than a hundred inhabitants to several hundred)
Domestication of plants and animals
Semi-nomadic
Food production is a major social effort
Division of labor evolves especially by gender
3. Pastoralism

Relies on the domestication and breeding of animals for food

Began to produce more food than they needed

Became larger and more permanently rooted to one location

Job specialization emerged

4. Agriculture

Members of an agricultural or agrarian society tend crops with an animal harnessed to a plow

Productivity increases, and as long as there is plenty of food, people do not have to move

As crop yields are high, it is no longer necessary for every member of the society to engage in some form
of farming, so some people begin developing other skills. Job specialization increases.

Fewer people are directly involved with the production of food, and the economy becomes more complex.




5. Industrialism
People and goods traversed much longer distances because of innovations in transportation, such as the
train and the steamship.
Rural areas lost population because more and more people were engaged in factory work and had to move
to the cities.
Fewer people were needed in agriculture, and societies became urbanized, which means that the majority of
the population lived within commuting distance of a major city.
Suburbs grew up around cities to provide city-dwellers with alternative places to live.

A postindustrial society, the type of society that has developed over the past few decades, features an
economy based on services and technology, not production. There are three major characteristics of a
postindustrial economy:
1. Focus on ideas: Tangible goods no longer drive the economy.
2. Need for higher education: Factory work does not require advanced training, and the new focus on
information and technology means that people must pursue greater education.
3. Shift in workplace from cities to homes: New communications technology allows work to be
performed from a variety of locations.

~ END ~
Sources:
Horton and Hunt. Sociology.

Kendall, Diana. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2007.

Anonuevo, Cora, et al."Human Behavior:From the Disciplines of Anthropology, Psychology and
Sociology."Mandaluyong City: Books atbp. Publishing Corp., 2004.

Appelbaum, Richard. "Introduction to Sociology Fourth Edition."New York City:W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003.

http://home.earthlink.net/~youngturck/Chapter8.htm

http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_2.htm

http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205711200.pdf

http://www.uh.edu/~nestor/lecturenotes/unit2lecture5.html

http://isinylmz.com/different-types-of-societies-and-their-major-characteristics/

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/sciences/sociology/culture-and-societies/types-of-societies

http://www.sparknotes.com/sociology/society-and-culture/section2.rhtml

Reported by: Group 2 (Arroyo, Goco, Lorque, Nolasco, Rocamora)