prepared by: Jef Lim

CONTENT OVERVIEW:
A. Meaning of Culture and Society.
B. Characteristics of Culture.
C. Functions of Culture.
D. Aspects of Culture.
E. Elements of Culture.
F. Common Reactions towards Other Cultures.
WHAT IS
CULTURE?
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• Culture is a commonly know and used word that we take
for granted everyday and its meaning not often delve
deeply by most people with the thinking that they
innately know its meaning.
• However, when ask its meaning most people would come
up with a vague general answer rather than a definitive
one.
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• According to British anthropologist Edward Taylor,
“Culture is that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society”.

Source:https://www.iedunote.com/culture
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• While according to Ralph Linton, “A culture is a
configuration of learned behaviors and results of
behavior whose component elements are shared and
transmitted by the members of a particular society”.

Source:https://www.iedunote.com/culture
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• A more simplified and more condense define:

• CULTURE:
• Is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs,
knowledge, material objects, and behavior.
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• Members of society learn this culture and transmit it
from one generation to the next.

• Culture which is learned, passes from one generation to

the next through the process of enculturation.
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• ENCULTURATION:
• The social process by which culture is learned and
transmitted across the generations.

• This social transmission of culture is essential to pass on

previous knowledge and does not require every
generation to reinvent everything (especially
technology).
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• It is also important to take note that society and culture
are not one and the same.
• But rather Society is “a fairly large number of people
who live in the same territory, are relatively independent
of the outside it, and participate in a common culture”.
Meaning of Culture and Society.
• In short, society is referring to the collection of people
practicing or expressing a particular culture.

• And culture here provides a unique characteristic or

identity that set its practitioners apart from other
societies.
CHARTERISTICS OF
CULTURE
Characteristics of Culture:
1. Culture is Learned
2. Culture is Shared
3. Culture is Abstract/Symbolic
4. Culture is All-Encompassing
5. Culture is Integrated
6. Culture is Directly Affected by Nature
7. Culture can be Adaptive and Maladaptive
8. Culture is Cumulative
9. Culture is Dynamic
10. Culture is Diverse
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS LEARNED:
• Social animals (namely humans) also learn from other
members of their group (may it be through
observationsor direct interaction).
Characteristics of Culture:
• Cultural learning depends on the uniquely developed
human capacity to use (or develop) symbols.

• On the basis of cultural learning, people create,

remember, and deal with ideas.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS SHARED:
• Culture is an attribute not of individuals per se but of
individuals as members of groups.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Culture is transmitted in society.

• Enculturation unifies people by providing us with

common experiences.
Characteristics of Culture:
• People become agents in the enculturation of their
children, just as their parents were for them.

• Although a culture constantly changes, certain

fundamental beliefs, values, worldviews, & child-rearing
practices endure.
Characteristics of Culture:
• We share our opinions and beliefs with many other
people.

• Illustrating the power of shared cultural background.

Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS ABSTRACT/SYMBOLIC:
• Culture exists in the minds or habits of the members of
society.

.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Symbolic thought is unique & crucial to humans & to
cultural learning.

• Culture is the shared ways of doing and thinking.

Characteristics of Culture:
• There are degrees of visibility of cultural behavior,
ranging from the regularised activities of persons to their
internal reasons for so doing.

• In other words, we cannot see culture as such we can

only see human behavior.
Characteristics of Culture:
• This behavior occurs in regular, patterned fashion and it
is called culture.
Characteristics of Culture:
• According to Leslie White:
• Culture originated when our ancestors acquired the
ability to use symbols, that is, to originate and bestow
meaning on a thing or event, and, correspondingly, to
grasp and appreciate such meanings (White 1959,p.3).
Characteristics of Culture:
• These abilities are to learn, to think symbolically, to
manipulate language, and to use tools and other cultural
products in organizing their lives and coping with their
environments.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS ALL-ENCOMPASSING:
• All people are “cultured.”

• Everyone is cultured, not just people with elite

educations.
Characteristics of Culture:
• In sociological terms, culture does not refer solely to the
fine arts and refined intellectual taste.

• Culture, as defined anthropologically, encompasses

features that are sometimes regarded as trivial or
unworthy of serious study, such as “popular” culture.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS INTEGRATED:
• Cultures are not haphazard collections of customs and
belief.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Cultures are integrated, patterned systems.

• If one part of the system (e.g., the economy) changes,

other parts change as well.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Culture trains their individual members to share certain
personality traits.

• A set of characteristics central or core values (key,

basic, or central values) integrates each culture and help
distinguish it from others.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY NATURE:
• Culture takes the natural biological urges we share with
other animals & teaches us how to express them in
particular ways.
Characteristics of Culture:
• People have to eat, but culture teaches us what, when, &
how (to eat).

• Cultural habits, perceptions, & inventions mold “human

nature” in many direction.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Our culture-& cultural changes-affects the ways in
which we perceive nature, human nature, & “the
natural.”

• Through science, invention, & discovery, cultural

advances have overcome many “natural” limitations.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Culture, of course, has not freed us from natural threats.

• Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, & other forces regularly

challenges our wishes to modify the environment
through building, development, and expansion.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE CAN BE ADAPTIVE & MALADAPTIVE:
• Although humans continue to adapt biologically, reliance
on social and cultural means of adaptation has increased
during human evolution.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Sometimes adaptive behavior that offers short-term
benefits to particular individuals may harm the
environment and threaten the group’s long-term survival.

• Example:
• Economic growth may lead to depletion of resources for
society or for future generations.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Despite the crucial role of cultural adaption in human
evolution, cultural traits, patterns, and inventions also
can be maladaptive, threatening the group’s continued
existence (survival and reproduction).
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS CUMULATIVE:
• It has a tendency to grow and expand.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Stored knowledge is transmitted from one generation to
another.

• Newly acquired knowledge is then added to the stock of

knowledge as it passes through the process of
transmission.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS DYNAMIC:
• Change in culture is continuous, and no culture is totally
fixed or static.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Culture changes from within and without.

• One of the principal sources of change is diffusion,

which involves borrowing or transferring of elements
from one culture to another.
Characteristics of Culture:
• CULTURE IS DIVERSE:
• This means that culture is different from one another.
Characteristics of Culture:
• Each people has a distinctive culture with its own
characteristic ways of gathering and preparing food,
constructing homes, structuring the family, and
promoting standards of right and wrong.
FUNCTIONS OF
CULTURE
FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE:
1. Culture helps people adapt to the demands of the
surrounding environment and compensates for many
human physical limitations.
2. Culture prescribes behavior patterns that provide ways
and means to regulate human collective existence
through:
a) Conveying a Sense of Idenity.
b) Providing Roles and Bounderies.
c) Defining Attitudes, Values, and Goals.
d) Defining Space and Situations.
e) Functioning as a Social Glue.
ASPECTS OF
CULTURE
ASPECTS OF CULTURE:
A. MATERIAL CULTURE
B. NONMATERIAL CULTURE
ASPECTS OF CULTURE:
• MATERIAL CULTURE:
• Refers to any cultural matters that we can see and touch
-physical or tanglible or at most technological.

• Example: Food items, tools, shelter, and clothing.

ASPECTS OF CULTURE:
• NONMATERIAL CULTURE:
• Refers any cultural practices that we cannot see or touch
unless actions taken -abstract or intangible.

• Example: norms, values, and beliefs expressed

through art, language, and food preparations.
ELEMENTS OF
CULTURE
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
A. SYMBOLS
B. LANGUAGE
C. VALUES
D. NORMS
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• SYMBOLS:
• Refers to anything verbal or non-verbal or physical
material within a particular culture that is used to stand
for (or to represent) something else.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Every culture is filled with symbols, of things that stand
for something else and that often suggests various
reactions and emotions.

• Some symbols are actually types of nonverbal

communication, while other symbols are in fact material
objects.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Humans, consciously and subconsciously, are always
striving to make sense of their surrounding world.

• Symbols—such as gestures, signs, objects, signals, and

words—help people understand that world.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Symbols provide clues to understanding experiences by
conveying recognizable meanings that are shared by
societies.

• People who share a culture often attach a specific

meaning to an object, gesture, sound, or image.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Example : (Cross or Crucifix)
• a significant symbol to Christians.
• It is not simply two pieces of wood attached to each
other, nor is it just an old object of torture and
execution.
• To Christians, it represents the basis of their entire
religion, and they have great reverence for the symbol.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• LANGUAGE:
• Is an abstract system of word meaning and symbols for
all aspects of culture.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Some languages contain a system of symbols used for
written communication, while others rely on only spoken
communication and nonverbal actions.

• Language is primarily used for communication, and

transmitting knowledge, information, and ideas.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Societies often share a single language, and many
languages contain the same basic elements.

• An alphabet is a written system made of symbolic shapes

that refer to spoken sound.
• Taken together, these symbols convey specific meanings.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• VALUES:
• Refers to the collection conception of what is considered
good, desirable, and proper -or bad, undesirable, and
improper -in a culture.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Values are deeply embedded and critical for transmitting
and teaching a culture’s beliefs.

• Values help shape a society by suggesting what is good

and bad, beautiful and ugly, sought or avoided.

• Values determine how individuals will probably respond

in any given circumstances.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• NORMS:
• Refers to the established standards of behavior maintain
by a society.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Cultural norms govern socially acceptable “behaviors,” i.e.,
they can be seen as rules for what is appropriate to do and
what is not.

• Just like values, they also vary across societies and change
over time.

• This means that following the norm of one’s own society may
be violating the norm of another society.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Values and norms are oftentimes closely intertwined.

• Using the value of "time," for example, organizing an

event without caring about time can be violating a norm
of middle-class people in modern societies.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Types of Norms:
• FORMAL NORMS
• Laws

• INFORMAL NORMS
• Folkways
• Mores
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• FORMAL NORMS:
• Generally have been written down and specify strict
punishments for violators.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• They are behaviors worked out and agreed upon in order
to suit and serve the most people.

• Formal Norms can ranged from laws, employee manuals,

college entrance exam requirements, and “no running”
signs at swimming pools.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Formal norms are the most specific and clearly stated of
the various types of norms, and they are the most strictly
enforced.

• But even formal norms are enforced to varying degrees

and are reflected in cultural values.
• Example: Punishment of Crime (Theft).
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• LAWS:
• Are social norms that have become formally inscribed at
the state or federal level and can laws can result in
formal punishment for violations, such as fines,
incarceration, or even death.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Laws are a form of social control that outlines rules,
habits, and customs a society uses to enforce conformity
to its norms.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• INFORMAL NORMS:
• Are generally understood but are not precisely recorded
—casual behaviors that are generally and widely
conformed to—is longer.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• People learn informal norms by observation, imitation,
and general socialization.

• Some informal norms are taught directly—“Kiss your

Aunt” or “Use your napkin”—while others are learned
by observation, including observations of the
consequences when someone else violates a norm.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• But although informal norms define personal
interactions, they extend into other systems as well.

• In the United States, there are informal norms regarding

behavior at fast food restaurants.
• Customers line up to order their food and leave when
they are done.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Most people don’t commit even benign breaches of
informal norms.

• Informal norms dictate appropriate behaviors

without the need of written rules.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• FOLKWAYS:
• Are norms governing everyday behavior.

• Unlike mores, folkways are norms without any moral

underpinnings.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Folkways direct appropriate behavior in the day-to-
day practices and expressions of a culture.

• They indicate whether to shake hands or kiss on the

cheek when greeting another person.
• They specify whether to wear a tie and blazer or a T-
shirt and sandals to an event.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Many folkways are actions we take for granted.

• People need to act without thinking in order to get

seamlessly through daily routines; they can’t stop and
analyze every action (Sumner 1906).
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Folkways might be small manners, learned by
observation and imitated, but they are by no means
trivial.

• Like mores and laws, these norms help people negotiate

their daily lives within a given culture.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• MORES (mor-ays):
• Are norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a
society, often because they embody the most cherished
principles of a people.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• Mores are norms that embody the moral views and
principles of a group.

• Violating them can have serious consequences.

• The strongest mores are legally protected with laws or
other formal norms.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE:
• But more often, mores are judged and guarded by public
sentiment (an informal norm).

• People who violate mores are seen as shameful.

• They can even be shunned or banned from some groups.

Common Reactions
Towards Other
Cultures
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
A. CULTURE SHOCK
B. ETHNOCENTRISM
C. XENOCENTRISM
D. TEMPOROCENTRISM
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• CULTURE SHOCK:
• Refers to the feeling of surprise and disorientation that
people experience when they encounter cultural practices
that are different from their own.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Culture shock is social psychological phenomenon when
people encounter an unfamiliar or foreign culture for the
first time.

• Example: I foreigners comes to the Philippines and got

disguised after finding out that locals eat balut (or boiled
duck fetus in the egg) which he/she would as
unthinkable in their own country.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• ETHNOCENTRISM:
• Refers to the tendency to assume that one's culture
represents the norm or are superior to all others.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Ethnocentrism, as sociologist William Graham Sumner
(1906) described the term, involves a belief or attitude
that one’s own culture is better than all others.

• Almost everyone is a little bit ethnocentric.

Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• XENOCENTRISM:
• Refers to the tendency to value goods and culture or
even ideas from a country other than one’s own as
better.

• Xenocentrism is the opposite of ethnocentrism.

Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• This perception of one’s culture in comparison to other’s
plays a great role in how we perceive the individuals
around us and the groups that we are a part of.

• We may often look at another culture if we perceive that

it entails something that is missing in our own culture.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Example:
• A teenager living in India may become aware of the
existing individualism and a sense of freedom existing in
the American society given to others his/her own age and
hence will aspire to attain that.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Xenocentrism leads to cultural diffusion, which is the
spread of culture.

• It may also lead to hostility towards one’s own culture,

as one may find that the other culture is superior to their
own and tend to lean more towards that culture.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• This plays hence a great role in how and which culture
we choose to adopt, and with which culture we relate
more or adopt its mannerisms more.

• Example:
• Education, political systems, and technologies.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• TEMPOROCENTRISM:
• The belief in the inherent superiority of one’s own
period of history as the most enlightened and all
previous cultures are judged through its lens.

• Temporocentrism is the temporal equivalent of

ethnocentrism.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Applying the context of ethnocentrism to a chronological
vantage point, then, temporocentrism is the belief,
whether consciously held or unconsciously, that one’s
own time is more important than the past or future.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Individuals with a temporocentric perspective judge
historical events on the basis of contemporary standards
rather than in their own context, often resulting in
fallacy.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Temporalcentrism unnecessarily belittles and shames
historical figures and periods of history.

• Temporalcentrism gives us an unrealistic sense of the

superiority of current day values and attitudes.
Common Reactions Towards Other Cultures:
• Temporalcentrism breeds both ignorance and arrogance.

• Ignorance because temporalcentrism turns a blind eye to

contemporary practices that are so pervasive they are
invisible to the mainstream of society, and, arrogant to
think that current thought trends and practices are the
end all, be all of progress…that we have somehow
arrived.
Click here to add a subtitle