CHAPTER 3

CULTURE
 Meaning and Nature of Culture

Culture is a very
powerful force that affects
the lives of the members
of a society.

Culture shapes and guide’s people’s

perception of reality, determines the
food that they eat and how they eat,
clothing they wear, music they listen
to, the games they play.
 2 Kinds of Culture
1. Material Culture – refers to the
concrete and tangible things that man
creates and uses.
Example:
Tools, weapons, clothing, books, machines etc
– things that man creates by altering the natural
environment.

This concrete things increase the person’s

chances for survival and enrich his life.
 2 Kinds of Culture
2. Non-material culture – refers
to non-material things or intangible
objects which the person uses,
follows, professes, or strives to
conform.

It includes…
knowledge, laws, lifestyles, techniques, ideas,
customs, behaviors.

This things are inherent in culture.

 4 Types of Non-Material Culture

1.Beliefs
2.Knowledge
3.Norms
4.Sanctions
 4 Types of Non-Material Culture

1. Beliefs – these are man’s

perception about the reality of
things and are shared ideas about
how the environments operates.
Examples:
Superstitious beliefs – barriers to social and
technological development.
Scientific beliefs – are phenomena and are based
on experimental and research studies
 4 Types of Non-Material Culture

2. Knowledge- is a body of facts and

beliefs that people acquire and
accumulate over time. It consists of
information about places, events, and
people.
 4 Types of Non-Material Culture

3. Norms – these are guides and models of

behavior which tell how people should
behave in a particular situation; what
people ought or not ought to do.
They regulate people’s behavior in a given society for
example in any sport, restaurant, recreational center
etc.
 4 Types of Non-Material Culture

4. Sanctions – are prescribed norms of

conduct exposed by society to an individual
for him to conform to moral standards and
accept those that are favorable to a group.

Formal Sanctions – are prescribed norms of

conduct that are written guide for individuals to
conform with.
Informal Sanctions – are those prescribed norms of
conduct which are transmitted by word of mouth
from one person or group to another.
 7 Types of Norms

1. Folkways
2. Mores
3. Laws
4. Values
5. Language
6. Fashions, Fads, Crazes
7. Ideas
 7 Types of Norms

1. Folkways – are
customary ways of
behaving which have
become habitual and
repetitive. They are
simply the way people
usually do things.
Examples:
Shaking hands, regular bathing,
cutting tall grasses around the house
etc.
 2 Forms of Folkways
Customs – are repetitive ways of doing
things, such as manner and style of
dressing, marriage, ceremony, hand
kissing as a sign of respect, and activities
in eating, fighting, birth, death, burial etc.
For example: the use of fork and spoon
while chine use chopstick.

Traditions – are the ways of believing,

such as belief in God, belief in life after
death, belief in superstitions.
 7 Types of Norms

2. Mores – are norms

that become more
compulsive and
necessary for the welfare
of society and take on
moral significance.
Examples:
prohibitions of incest,
cannibalism, abuse of children,
respect for authority, sex and
marriage behavior, private
ownership or property, division of
 7 Types of Norms
3. Laws – these are the formalized
social norms enacted by people and
are enforced formally by a special
political organizations.
Examples:
constitutional laws, traffic laws, criminal, civil and
administrative laws, school laws etc.
 7 Types of Norms

4. Values – these are

abstract ideas of what
are desirable, correct,
and good that most
members of a society
share. They represent
the standards we use to
evaluate the desirability
of things.
 7 Types of Norms

5. Language – this is another

component of culture in which a system
of symbols have specific and arbitrary
meaning in a given society.
Language sets human beings apart from other living
things.. It is language that makes us higher than animals
 7 Types of Norms

6. Fashions, Fads, Crazes

Fashions – follows a specific pattern of
behavior such that it spreads from the upper
levels of society downward.
Fads – are either verbal or non-verbal
examples are body piercing, body tattoing.
Fads eventually die out.
Crazes – are sometimes called rages or
social epidemics. Examples: Hair coloring,
manicuring with black color of nail polish.
 7 Types of Norms

7. Ideas – these
norms comprise of
man’s perceptions
of the physical,
social and cultural
world.
 8 Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is learned and acquired.
2. Culture is shared and transmitted.
3. Culture is adaptive or dynamic.
4. Culture is cumulative.
5. Culture is ideational.
6. Culture gratifies human needs.
7. Culture is social.
8. Culture is integration.
 9 Functions of Culture
1. It serves as a “trademark” of the people in
a society.
2. It gives meaning to man’s existence.
3. Culture unifies diverse behavior.
4. Culture provides social solidarity.
5. Culture establishes social personality
6. Culture provides systematic behavioral
pattern.
7. Culture promotes meaning to individual’s
existence.
8. Culture predicts social behavior.
9. Culture provides social structure category.
 3 Modes of Acquiring Culture

1. Imitation – children
and adults have the
tendency to imitate
the values, attitudes,
languages and all other
things in their social
environment.
 3 Modes of Acquiring Culture
2. Indoctrination or Suggestion –
formally, the person learns from
school. Informally, he may acquire
behavior from listening and watching,
reading, attending training activities.
 3 Modes of Acquiring Culture

3. Conditioning – the values,

beliefs, and attitudes of other
people are acquired through
conditioning reinforced through
reward or punishment.
 7 Adaptation of Culture

1. Parallelism
2. Diffusion
3. Convergence
4. Fission
5. Acculturation
6. Assimilation
7. Accomodation
 7 Adaptation of Culture

1. Parallelism – the same culture may take

place in two or more different places.

Example:
The domestication of dogs, cats, pigs and
other animals may have semblance in other
places.
 7 Adaptation of Culture

2. Diffusion – this refers to those behavioral

patterns that pass back and forth from one
culture to another.

Example:
Food and eating practices, marriage and
wedding ceremonies, burial rituals, feast
celebration.
 7 Adaptation of Culture

3. Convergence – when two or more cultures

are fused or merged into one culture
making it different from the original
culture.

4. Fission – when people break away from

their original culture and start developing a
different culture of their own
 7 Adaptation of Culture

5. Acculturation – individuals incorporate the

behavioral patterns of other cultures into
their own either voluntary or by force.

Voluntary Acculturation – occurs through

imitation, borrowing, or personal contact with
other people.
 7 Adaptation of Culture

6. Assimilation – when the culture of a larger

society is adopted by a smaller society
assumes some of the culture of the larger
or host society.

7. Accomodation – when the larger society are

able to respect and tolerate each other’s
culture even if there is already a prolonged
contact of each other’s culture, this process
is called accomodation.
Other Cultural
Concepts
 Other Cultural Concepts

1. Sub-Culture – these are group of people

who do not want to assimilate the culture
of the society where they belong. They
want to think and behave differently from
the rest,

Example:
The “apir” gesture of greetings; use of
words “chick” to a girl. “rape” as inverted
version of pera or “atik” or “bread”.
Sub-cultures appear in all society.
 Other Cultural Concepts

2. Culture Shock – when people go to other

places and are confronted with a different
culture of their own. A kind of negative
reaction.

Usually experienced by migrants or

professionals, and tourists when traveling to
far places in the Philippines or in foreign land.
 Other Cultural Concepts

3. Cultural Lag - when some parts of society’s

cultural patterns sometimes become
outmoded in relation to other due to rapid
changes, institutions and persons that could
not cope with innovations and modern
changes lag behind.
Example:
A farmer who still practices the traditional
method of farming and cannot accept
innovative farming.
 Other Cultural Concepts

4. Cultural Universals – these are behavioral

patterns that are commonly found in all
human cultures.
Example:
Sports, games, dancing, funeral procession,
gift giving, hospitality, religious rituals,
wedding ceremonies.
 Other Cultural Concepts

5. Cultural Dualism – this is a behavioral

pattern of some Filipinos in which two cultures
or even more are being manifested in the
personality and character of a Filipino.

Have a blending of Filipino-Spanish culture or

Filipino-American culture.
 Other Cultural Concepts

6. Cultural Relativism – is a cultural concept

based on the idea that culture is relative,
that is no culture in a society is perfect,
good or bad.

The culture of one society should not be

compared with another society’s culture as a
perfect one. Thus, each culture is unique and
different from each other.
 Other Cultural Concepts

7. Cultural ethnocentrism – this cultural

concept is a belief that one’s culture is
superior, right, and normal than other
cultures.
Example:
The Greeks in ancient Greece, considered
themselves superior from the rest of the
society.
Hitler even proclaimed that the German
people are superior over the Jews.
The Spaniards considered the Filipinos as
“Indios”.
 4 Advantages of Cultural
Ethnocentrism
1. It serves as a source of pride, well
being and security of a group;
2. It may strengthen group morale;
3. It enhances group solidarity and
individual self-esteem; and
4. It increases the group’s
appreciation of and commitment to
one’s culture.
 3 Disadvantages of Cultural
Ethnocentrism
1. It may cause inter-group conflicts
and problems of all sorts.
2. May lead to social intolerance and
prejudice due to in-group and out-
group feeling.
3. It may cause one group to be
isolated and eventually stagnate for
being condemned as an inferior
group.