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These flashcards cover key concepts from the lecture on culture and its various aspects, suitable for exam preparation.

Culture

The totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior, including ideas, values, and artifacts of groups of people.

Material Culture

Tangible products that are utilized to define a society’s way of life, including tools, buildings, and other physical objects.

Non-Material Culture

Intangible creations of society, such as ideas, values, and beliefs.

Cultural Universals

Common practices and beliefs across all societies, such as food, shelter, and clothing.

Innovation

The process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture.

Diffusion

The process by which a cultural item spreads from one group or society to another.

Subculture

Cultural patterns that distinguish some segment of a society’s population, often associated with specific occupations, lifestyles, or demographics.

Counterculture

Cultural patterns that strongly oppose widely accepted values and norms within a society.

Ethnocentrism

Judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture, often leading to a distorted view of cultural diversity.

Cultural Relativism

Judging a culture by its own standards, requiring an understanding of that culture's norms and values.

Norms

Rules and expectations that guide the behavior of members of a society, which can be either prescriptive or proscriptive.

Mores

Norms with great moral significance that distinguish between right and wrong.

Folkways

Norms with less moral significance that distinguish between right and rude behavior in society.

Language

A system of symbols that allows members of a society to communicate, playing a crucial role in transmitting culture.