SOC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Ethnocentrism, Cultural Lag, Ten Commandments
Document Summary
Culture: perspective on world that people share through social interaction: hard to blatantly see- it is what is natural to us, profoundly influences our behavior and actions, cultural norms vary across nations and communities. Ex. thumbs up means something different in different societies, flipping light switches up vs. down: every family, community, state. Material culture: everything humans make from nature, objects. Non-material culture: intangible, symbols, language, values, morals: symbols= social things, acquiring meaning only in the context of a culture. In different cultures, symbols may have different/no meaning: elicit powerful emotions because express the emotional foundations as our culture. Language= system of symbols and rules for using these symbols that allow people to communicate with one another: without language, no culture, content of language reveals a lot about culture. Number of words for describing things of cultural importance (i. e. 20 words for cows in peru, obviously very important)
