Question | Answer |
culture | the ways of thinking, acting and the material objects that together, form a people's way of life |
society | people who interact in a defined territory and share a culture |
culture shock | personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life |
symbol | anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture |
language | a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another |
cultural transmission | the process by which one generation passes culture to the next |
Sapir-Whorf thesis | the idea that people see and understand the world through the cultural lens of language |
values | culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living (equal opportunity, individualism etc) |
beliefs | specific ideas that people hold to be true |
norms | rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members |
mores | norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance (incest) |
folkways | norms for routine or casual interaction |
technology | knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings |
hunting and gathering | the use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation for food |
horticulture | the use of hand tools to raise crops |
pastoralism | domestication of animals |
agricultural | large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to animals or more powerful energy sources |
industry | the production of good using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery |
postindustrialism | the production of information using computer technology |
high culture | cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite |
popular culture | cultural patterns that are widespread among a society's population |
subculture | cultural patterns that set apart a segment of of society's population |
multiculturalism | a perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the United sates and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions |
Eurocentrism | the dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns |
Afrocentrism | emphasizing and promoting African cultural patterns |
counterculture | cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society |
cultural integration | the close relationships among various elements of a cultural system |
cultural lag | the fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system |
ethnocentrism | the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture |
cultural relativism | the practice of judging a culture by its own standards |
cultural universals | traits that are part of every known culture (ex: incest taboo) |
sociobiology | a theoretical approach that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture |