PSYC14H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Acculturation, Enculturation, Noodle
What is culture?
Is culture unique to humans?
● Big brain hypothesis
○ Prefrontal cortex
The burke and wills expedition
● White settlers went to australia and explored it, hot only transport were camels
○ Their camels died
● They had to learn to survive on the land but they failed and died
● But there was a group of indigenous people who lived in the same place for hundreds of
years and were thriving, “smart” white people couldn’t do the same
● Indigenous people survived due to their culture, they found good food sources and this
knowledge gets passed down from generation to generation and the white ppl weren’t
the beneficiaries of this knowledge and thus failed
○ Seed paste vitamin B deficiency virus death
● Raw intelligence of humans isn’t that special but our social learning is the secret of our
success
Given the importance of culture in humans, how can we define it?
1. Humans interact with environments
○ Ecocultural components
i. Culture is both constrained and shaped by a group’s habitat
○ Culture is adaptive to the environment
i. Parka example, after many years the clothes become more specific
ii. Spices example, hotter climates = more spices, spices kill pathogens and
that’s why there are more spicy foods in hotter places (i.e. India)
○ People develop language, writing, tools, skills, abstract ideas, moral and
aesthetic standards, social patterns, norms, etc. in adapting to their ecosystem
2. Culture consists of shared elements
○ Shared practices and shared meanings
Document Summary
White settlers went to australia and explored it, hot only transport were camels. They had to learn to survive on the land but they failed and died. But there was a group of indigenous people who lived in the same place for hundreds of years and were thriving, smart white people couldn"t do the same. Indigenous people survived due to their culture, they found good food sources and this knowledge gets passed down from generation to generation and the white ppl weren"t the beneficiaries of this knowledge and thus failed. Seed paste vitamin b deficiency virus death. Raw intelligence of humans isn"t that special but our social learning is the secret of our success. Given the importance of culture in humans, how can we define it: humans interact with environments. Culture is both constrained and shaped by a group"s habitat. Culture is adaptive to the environment i. ii. Parka example, after many years the clothes become more specific.
