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Impact of culture on society
How culture affects a society
Impact of culture on society
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The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition defines Culture as the “shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition)
In an article called Cultural Factor Highly Influences On Consumers & Their Buying Behavior – In Indian Context, the basic characteristics of culture are described:
Culture has five basic characteristics: It is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated, and dynamic. All cultures share these basic features.
Culture is learned. It is not biological; we do not inherit it. Much of learning culture is unconscious. We learn culture from families, peers, institutions, and media. The process of learning culture is known as enculturation. While all humans have basic biological needs such as food, sleep, and sex, the way we fulfill those needs varies cross-culturally.
Culture is shared. Culture is shared by a firmly large group of human beings living in organized societies and works as a linking force. Generally, common religion and language are the critical elements that largely help people share values, customs, norms and experiences.
Culture is based on symbols. A symbol is something that stands for something else. Symbols vary cross-culturally and are arbitrary. They only have meaning when people in a culture agree on their use. Language, money and art are all symbols. Language is the most important symbolic component of culture.
Culture is integrated. This is known as holism, or the various parts o...
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...l Factor Highly Influences On Consumers & Their Buying Behavior – In Indian Context. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, n.d. 18-19. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
< http://iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/ncibppte-volume-1/1015.pdf>.
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Penteado, Carlos J. The Brazilian Participation in World War II. N.p., 2006. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
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Culture by definition is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices, as well as customary beliefs, social forms and material traits that characterize a racial, religious or ...
Culture is a difficult concept to put into words. “Traditionally anthropologists have used the term culture to refer to a way of life - traditions and customs - transmitted through learning” (Kottak, et al. 2008: p.11). Children inherit their culture, as well as social norms and ethics, through a process called enculturation. Enculturation, in essence, determines who a person will become, because culture defines who a person is. More specifically, “Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities or habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Taylor, 1971/1951: p. 1). In modern society, our traditions and customs come from a variety of different sources. Television,
Culture can be defined as customary beliefs or ways of an origin. Characteristics that can define culture are that culture is learned, shared, based on symbols, integrated and is dynamic (EarthLink). Culture is something that can be passed down from generation to generation, it is not inherited or in our genes. We are taught culture from everyone around us and being taught culture means we will share it as well. Starting from young ages, elders of family and friends share their experiences and knowledge of the culture. Symbols can be different from all other cultures. All symbols have meaning behind them such as their language, artistic pieces and in some cases, currency. Integration of culture is known as holism, or the various parts of culture being interconnected (EarthLink). Every aspect of culture must all be learned to understand the complete meaning within the culture. Not everything within a culture can stay the same, it can adapt to the new times and changes within the society.
Culture can be defined as “A pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore to be taught to the new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”. Schein (1988)
Personally, I would define culture as a makeup of different groups that someone can relate to which in the end will form that person’s identity. Being born and raised in Ethiopia I can easily relate to Ethiopian culture, I can say in complete confidence that this is the culture that has had the most impact on my life. It has influenced me to be polite and to fight for what I believe in. It has made me polite, because it is the Ethiopian
Anthropologists define the term culture in a variety of ways, but there are certain shared features of the definition that virtually all anthropologists agree on. Culture is a shared, socially transmitted knowledge and behavior. The key features of this definition of culture are as follows. 1) Culture is shared among the members of that particular society or group. Thus, people share a common cultural identity, meaning that they recognize themselves and their culture's traditions as distinct from other people and other traditions. 2) Culture is socially transmitted from others while growing up in a certain environment, group, or society. The transmission of cultural knowledge to the next generation by means of social learning is referred to as enculturation or socialization. 3) Culture profoundly affects the knowledge, actions, and feelings of the people in that particular society or group. This concept is often referred to as cultural knowledge that leads to behavior that is meaningful to others and adaptive to the natural and social environment of that particular culture.
Mooij, M.de. (2004). Consumer Behavior and Culture, Sage Publications, Page 102, Page 119, Page 274, Page 275
Culture can be simply considered as "the way we do things around here", said Cartwright (2004, pp.85). A further understanding given by Deresky (2006, pp.83) is that a culture is composed by 'shared values, understandings, assumptions, and goals that are learned from earlier generations, imposed by present members of a society and passed on to succeeding generations'. It can be seen that culture is formed by lifestyle and knowledge acquisition of people from a certain region, and then it stands for a general preference, opinion, and value of them. So that's why people from the same place may have much in common.
Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people…Culture in its broadest sense of cultivated behavior; a totality of a person’s learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning (http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html).
Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society. Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform to society's shared values, and contribute to society. Thus, culture includes many societal aspects: language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and institutions. Sociologists define society as the people who interact in such a way as to share a common culture. The term society can also have a geographic meaning and refer to people who share a common culture in a particular location. For example, people living in arctic climates developed different cultures from those living in desert cultures.Culture and society are intricately related. A culture consists of the “objects” of a society, whereas a society consists of the people who share a common culture.
Culture is difficult to define but has a set of defining characteristics. From an anthropological perspective, culture is a set of traits that are learned during childhood and actively transmitted by adults. Every culture exhibits variation in the form of subculture and microcultures. Culture is also an adaptive phenomenon, in that it must solve problems imposed by the environment. Anthropologists study these phenomena to gain a better understanding of the causes and consequences of human culture.
The term “culture” refers to the complex accumulation of knowledge, folklore, language, rules, rituals, habits, lifestyles, attitudes, beliefs, and customs that link and provide a general identity to a group of people. Cultures take a long time to develop. There are many things that establish identity give meaning to life, define what one becomes, and how one should behave.
Culture can be summed up as the behaviors, attitudes, customs, and beliefs combined in a society at a given time and place. Culture joins people by establishing a common ground. There are many common elements that result in the formation of cultural subgroups such as religion, family traditions, and the arts. The two most important cultural elements that have influenced my own social group (for better or for worse) would be communication styles and roles within the family.
At its roots culture means to me the traditions and customs that have been passed down from generation to generation. The great thing about this passing down of tradition and culture is that it can be very plastic and change in a very unique way. I believe culture encompasses traditions, customs, religion, values and beliefs. These core principles are very unique to a person. For me personally, my life has been a mixing pot of different cultures.
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.