PSYCO341 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Cultural Learning

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO341
• Professor: Taka Masuda

Document Summary

This is a very controversial question as there is a lack of consensus on the exact definition of culture. If we define culture as symbolic coding (signals, icons, and words that refers to something else that member of a culture can understand. If this is the definition then yes human do, but then we are simply defining culture in terms of what is uniquely human and then concluding that culture is therefore unique to human. If we define it as being able to transfer information though social transmission then no, culture is not unique to humans. There are many example of this transmission of information from one generation to the next. Such as imo in japan learning to clean the potatoes before eating it, chimps learning to use tools to extract termites from their mounds (also different chimps have different behaviors form other chimps).