AP HGEO Unit 03

Culture

Culture

The ways of life of a particular group of people

Cultural traits

The building blocks of culture; Visible and invisible attributes that combine to make up a group’s culture.

Artifacts

Tangible objects created by a culture

Sociofacts

 The ways in which a culture behaves and organizes institutions.

Mentifacts

The ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge of a culture

Cultural norms

Agreed upon cultural practices or standards that guide the behavior of a culture

Cultural taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture

Example of cultural taboo

Eating pork in Islam + Judaism

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one’s own culture or ethnic group is superior to others; judging other groups through the lens of one’s own culture.

Cultural relativism

The principle that an individual human’s beliefs and actions should be understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture

Cultural hearth

An area where civilizations began that radiated its customs, innovations, and ideologies and transformed the world

Environmental Determinism

The belief that the physical environment, especially things like climate and terrain, actively shapes culture.

Possibilism

The belief that environmental conditions may impact culture in some ways, but people are the primary architects of culture.

Cultural Realms

A large segment of the Earth with uniformity in cultural characteristics.