AP Human Geo Vocab (12/4)

Culture

The material and immaterial ways of life of a particular group of people.All of a group’s behaviors, actions, beliefs, and objects make up its culture.

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. What a culture uses.

Sociofacts

The ways in which a culture behaves and organizes institutions. What a culture does.

Mentifacts

The ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge of a culture. What a culture believes.

Cultural Norms

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

Cultural Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture.

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 Realm

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