SOCL 2001 Chapter : Vocab Ch2
Document Summary
Culture: the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and even material objects that characterize a group of people and are passed from one generation to the next. Material culture: the material objects that distinguish a group of people, such as their art, buildings, weapons, utensils, machines, hairstyles, clothing, and jewelry. Nonmaterial culture: a group"s way of thinking (including its beliefs, values, and other assumptions about the world) and doing (its common patterns of behavior including language and other forms of interaction); also called symbolic culture. Culture shock: the disorientation that people experience when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life. Ethnocentrism: the use of one"s own culture as a yardstick for judging the ways of other individuals or societies, generally leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms, and behaviors. Cultural relativism: not judging a culture but trying to understand it on its own terms.
