Anthro Midterm #2

• Is responsible for most differences in ways of thinking and behaving that exist between human societies or groups
• Is so essential in completing the psychological and social development of individuals that a person who did not learn culture would not be considered normal by other people

what goes on inside people’s heads: how they perceive the world around them, how they feel about particular people and events, what they desire and fear, and so forth

how people commonly act: how they conduct themselves around parents and spouses, how they carry out ceremonies, what they do when they are angry or sad, and so forth

refers to the attitudes, ideas, beliefs, conceptions, rules, values, standards, perceptions, and other information stored in people’s heads

• First, ideas and beliefs are learned as a consequence of being born into and growing up among a particular group.
• Second, an individual does not invent his or her own culture. Rather, the members of any given generation are carriers of the cultural ideas and beliefs they have learned from previous generations and will pass along with some modifications, to future generations

that the various parts of culture are mutually interdependent

consists of shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of behavior

• It is territorially defines, meaning that its members live in a contiguous physical space
• Most members speak and/or can understand the same language, although the language may not be the language everyone learned from birth
• Members share a sense of common identity relative to other societies, usually because of distinctive customs and beliefs
• Members are unified, although perhaps only temporarily and situationally, by an overarching organization that involves common activities or participation in public decisions

refers to cultural variations that exist within a single society

process by which infants and children learn the culture of those around them

then it is not acquired genetically- that is, by means of biological reproduction

• The members of a culture share enough knowledge that they behave in ways that are meaningful and acceptable to others so that they can avoid frequent misunderstandings and the need to explain what they are doing
• The knowledge guides behavior such that the people can survive, reproduce, and transmit their culture

• First, individuals have different social identities: male and females, old and young, rich and poor, family X and family Y, and so forth
• Second, the behavior of individuals varies with context and situation: a woman acts differently depending on whether she is interacting with her husband, child, priest, or employee
• Third, each human individual is in some ways a unique human individual even when brought up in the same society, we all differ in our emotional responses , appetites, interpretations of evens reactions to stimuli, and so forth
• Finally, cultural standards for and expectations of behavior are often ambiguous

useful to describe and analyze interactions and relationships in the context of a group

shared ideals (or rules) about how people ought to act in certain situations, or about how particular people should act towards particular other people

• (1) there is widespread agreement that people ought to adhere to certain standards of behavior,
• (2) other people judge the behavior of a person according to how closely it adheres to those standards,
• (3) people who repeatedly fail to follow the standards face some kind of negative reaction from other members of the group

consist of a people’s beliefs about eh way of life that is desirable for themselves and their society

something (like an object or an action) that represents, connotes, or calls to mind something else

• that their meanings are arbitrary and conventional.
• Arbitrary in this context means that there are no inherent qualities in the symbol that lead a human group to attribute one meaning to it rather that some other meaning

refers to the fact that the meanings exist only because people implicitly agree they exist

meaning that people generally agree on how nature, objects, groups, individuals and other phenomena should be divided into categories

from the multitude of differences and similarities that exist in some phenomena, a culture recognizes (contucts)only some features as religious relevant in making distinctions

the way they interpret reality and events, including their images of themselves and how they relate to the world around them

• 1) culture provides the knowledge by which we adapt to our natural environment by harnessing resources and solving other problems of living in a particular place
• 2) Culture is the basis for human social life. It provides ready-made norms, values, expectations, attitudes, symbols, and other knowledge that individuals use to communicate, cooperate, live in families and other groups, relate to people of their own and opposite sex, and establish political and legal systems
• 3) Culture affects our view of reality. It provides the mental concepts by which people perceive, interpret, analyze, and explain events in the world around them

• Some behavior that culture largely determines or dictates behavior
• culture provides rules or instructions that tell individuals what to do in particular situations: how to act toward friends, coworkers, and mothers-in-law; how to preform roles acceptable; how to worship; how to have weddings how to settle quarrels and so forth

where cultural differences have a biological basis, meaning that groups of people differ in how they think, feel, and act because they differ in their innate biological makeup

elements that exist in all known human cultural grouplings.