Transcript what is culture?

WHAT IS CULTURE?
PSYC 338
CULTURE IS…
“the truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side.”
(Blaise Pascal)
“the man-made part of the human environment.”
(Herskovits, 1948, p. 17)
Definition of Culture
Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and
reacting acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols,
constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups,
Including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core
of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived
and selected) ideas and especially their attached values.
Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952 (p. 181)
Objective culture …
is material culture and consists of such elements as
dress, food, houses, highways, tools, and machines.
Subjective culture …
“is a cultural group’s characteristic way of perceiving
its social environment.”
Triandis, 1972 (p. 4)
 Psychological definition
Values, Attitudes and Behaviour
Culture
Behaviour
Values
Attitudes
Adler, 1972 (p. 89)
A Cognitive Approach
Culture denotes an historically transmitted
pattern of meanings embodied in symbols,
a system of inherited conceptions expressed
in symbolic forms by means of which men
communicate, perpetuate, and develop their
knowledge about and attitudes toward life.
Geertz, 1972 (p. 89)
Another Cognitive Approach
Culture is defined as collective programming
of the mind which distinguishes the members
of one human group from another.
Hofstede, 1980 (p. 25)
Essential elements of culture
* Culture distinguishes the members of one human group
from another.
* Culture is a shared belief system and has to be learned.
* Culture consists of patterned ways of thinking, feeling
and reacting.
* Culture influences our behavior mainly unconsciously
and is taken for granted.
* Culture has strong influence on our identity.
* Culture underlies current change.
* Cultural patterns are mainly acquired and transmitted by
means of communication.
* Culture is crystallized in institutions people have built
together and therefore takes place in different areas.
Culture is not….
* A social system
* Society
* Nation
People are
- members of society
- participate in social systems and
- share culture.
Our Goals
In this class you are going to learn
* how culture influences our thinking, feeling and
reacting
* what happens when members of two different cultures
meet
* what happens when people leave their own cultural
context and have to adapt to new cultures
QUESTIONS FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS
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What is universal about human beings?
?
?
What are characteristic features of a certain group of
people, e.g. cultural groups?
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What makes the individual unique?
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Universalism
Cultural differences can be neglected as the commonalities among human beings
outweigh them.
Basic psychological processes are common to all members of the species. They
constitute a set of psychological givens in all human beings.
Cultural Relativism (Boas, 1939)
The development of human personality is mainly influenced by our environment.
All human behavior is culturally patterned.
Cultural relativism seeks to avoid “ethnocentrism” by trying to understand
people in their own terms.
Ethnocentrism (Sumner, 1906)
A strong tendency to use one’s own group’s standards as the standard when
viewing other groups, to place one’s group at the top of a hierarchy and to rank all
others as lower.
TASKS
* Ask yourself:
What is important to you?
How is this affected by your cultural background?
* Take a walk through Wellington and observe your
surroundings:
What symbols or behaviour do you find that may be
influenced by culture?