What is Culture?

The word culture has many different meanings. For some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music, art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient medium in a laboratory Petri dish. However, for anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. Tylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917) belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Of course, it is not limited to men. Women possess and create it as well. Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology. Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a fragile phenomenon. It is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture. They are not culture in themselves. For this reason, archaeologists can not dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns--they are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills.

Layers of Culture
There are very likely three layers or levels of culture that are part of your learned behavior patterns and perceptions. Most obviously is the body of cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society. When people speak of Italian, Samoan, or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared language, traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others. In most cases, those who share your culture do so because they acquired it as they were raised by parents and other family members who have it.

The second layer of culture that may be part of your identity is a subculture . In complex, diverse societies in which people have come from many different parts of the world, they often retain much of their original cultural traditions. As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest of their society. Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the United States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. Members of each of these subcultures share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience. As the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry. That is generally the case with German Americans and Irish Americans in the United States today. Most of them identify themselves as Americans first. They also see themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.
These Cuban American women in Miami, Florida have a shared subculture identity that is reinforced through their language, food, and other traditions

The third layer of culture consists of cultural universals. These are learned behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter where people live in the world, they share these universal traits. Examples of such "human cultural" traits include: 1. communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences 2. using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man) 3. classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin) 4. raising children in some sort of family setting 5. having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus women's work)

6. having a concept of privacy 7. having rules to regulate sexual behavior 8. distinguishing between good and bad behavior 9. having some sort of body ornamentation 10. making jokes and playing games 11. having art 12. having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions While all cultures have these and possibly many other universal traits, different cultures have developed their own specific ways of carrying out or expressing them. For instance, people in deaf subcultures frequently use their hands to communicate with sign language instead of verbal language. However, sign languages have grammatical rules just as verbal ones do.

Culture and Society

Culture and society are not the same thing. While cultures are complexes of learned behavior patterns and perceptions, societies are groups of interacting organisms. People are not the only animals that have societies. Schools of fish, flocks of birds, and hives of bees are societies. In the case of humans, however, societies are groups of people who directly or indirectly interact with each other. People in human societies also generally perceive that their society is distinct from other societies in terms of shared traditions and expectations. While human societies and cultures are not the same thing, they are inextricably connected because culture is created and transmitted to others in a society. Cultures are not the product of lone individuals. They are the continuously evolving products of people interacting with each other. Cultural patterns such as language and politics make no sense except in terms of the interaction of people. If you were the only human on earth, there would be no need for language or government.

Is Culture Limited to Humans?

There is a difference of opinion in This orangutan mother is the behavioral sciences about using a specially prepared whether or not we are the only stick to "fish out" food from a crevice. She learned this animal that creates and uses skill and is now teaching it culture. The answer to this to her child who is hanging question depends on how narrow on her shoulder and intently culture is defined. If it is used watching. broadly to refer to a complex of learned behavior patterns, then it is clear that we are not alone in creating and using culture. Many other animal species teach their young what they themselves learned in order to survive. This is especially true of the chimpanzees and other relatively intelligent apes and monkeys. Wild chimpanzee mothers typically teach their children about several hundred food and medicinal plants. Their children also have to learn about the dominance hierarchy and the social rules within their communities. As males become teenagers, they acquire hunting skills from adults. Females have to learn how to nurse and care for their babies. Chimpanzees even have to learn such basic skills as how to perform sexual intercourse. This knowledge is not hardwired into their brains at birth. They are all learned patterns of behavior just as they are for humans. "The phases of culture shock are predictable Experts reject the concept of culture shock as a malady that one catches and then gets over. It is not something that strikes suddenly or results from a single event. Instead, it builds up over time, an accumulation of minor or major cultural confrontations that may be difficult to pinpoint. Experts now prefer to describe culture shock as a "cycle of readjustment", marked by four phases. Phase 1: In the beginning you go through an euphoric period, the "tourist phase": when you take a lot of pictures and are excited about the move. You may notice how surprisingly similar things are to home, and things that are dissimilar seem merely quaint. Phase 2: Soon elements of the new culture begin to intrude, are no longer always enchanting. Your curiosity is overtaken by irritation, impatience, frustration, anger and depression. Minor nuisances become catastrophic upsets. You feel helpless and drained, emotionally and physically. Family members bicker more than normally or begin to complain about the country and local people. Differences become blown out of proportion, and harsh judgements will be made: "These people just don't value human life". People at this stage show all the symptoms of being under pressure. Some people withdraw, develop obsessions (about cleanliness, fear of foreigners, over-eating or sleeping), or become overtly hostile and aggressive. Phase 2 can last for months. It affects the employee's performance at work, children's
Non-human culture?

adjustment at school, and the spouse's ability to provide family support at home. It does not affect only the individuals involved, but the whole family dynamic. Fortunately, reactions usually hit different family members at different times, so that individuals are better able to help each other, and they must adjustment is a process to be worked on by family members together. Phase 3: If they don't pack up and go home during Phase 2, an individual or family eventually begins to learn, to change and to adapt. This is a "pulling-up" period, in which you begin to accept local ways, or accept negative feelings but find better ways to handle them. Self-confidence returns; you feel less isolated and more comfortable. You can now look onward and upward. Phase 4: At last you come to feel at home and to truly enjoy the country and culture. Your sense of humour returns, you have made friends, you "know the ropes". You are now the local expert who can give advice. Newcomers can now cry on your shoulder. Fortunately, culture shock is predictable, patterned and manageable. If you are prepared, you can control it. If you don't take steps to deal with it, it can be expensive in time, money and heartache"

MANIFESTATIONS OF CULTURE
Cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Symbols represent the most superficial and values the deepest manifestations of culture, with heroes and rituals in between.

Symbols are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that carry a particular meaning which is only recognized by those who share a particular culture. New symbols easily develop, old ones disappear. Symbols from one particular group are regularly copied by others. This is why symbols represent the outermost layer of a culture. Heroes are persons, past or present, real or fictitious, who possess characteristics that are highly prized in a culture. They also serve as models for behavior. Rituals are collective activities, sometimes superfluous in reaching desired objectives, but are considered as socially essential. They are therefore carried out most of the times for their own sake (ways of greetings, paying respect to others, religious and social ceremonies, etc.). The core of a culture is formed by values. They are broad tendencies for preferences of certain state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong, naturalunnatural). Many values remain unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore they often cannot be discussed, nor they can be directly observed by others. Values can only be inferred from the way people act under different circumstances. Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the tangible or visual aspects of the practices of a culture. The true cultural meaning of the practices is intangible; this is revealed only when the practices are interpreted by the insiders.

MEASURING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

A variable can be operationalized either by single- or composite-measure techniques. A single-measure technique means the use of one indicator to measure the domain of a concept; the composite-measure technique means the use of several indicators to construct an index for the concept after the domain of the concept has been empirically sampled. Hofstede (1997) has devised a composite-measure technique to measure cultural differences among different societies:

Power distance index: The index measures the degree of inequality that exists in a society. Uncertainty avoidance index: The index measures the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain or ambiguous situations. Individualism index: The index measure the extent to which a society is individualistic. Individualism refers to a loosely knit social framework in a society in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and their immediate families only. The other end of the spectrum would be collectivism that occurs when there is a tight social framework in which people distinguish between ingroups and out-groups; they expect their in-groups (relatives, clans, organizations) to look after them in exchange for absolute loyalty. Masculinity index (Achievement vs. Relationship): The index measures the extent to which the dominant values are assertiveness, money and things (achievement), not caring for others or for quality of life. The other end of the spectrum would be femininity (relationship).