Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers the fundamental definitions, types, and elements of culture based on the lecture by John Michael B. Diez.

Culture

According to Edward B. Taylor, it is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Characteristics of Culture

The three primary traits of culture: it is learned, transmitted, and adaptive.

Material Culture

Deals with physical culture including contemporary technology, artifacts, relics, fossils, and other tangible remains of cultural development from the past and present.

Non-material Culture

Deals with the intangibles including values, norms, beliefs, traditions, and customs that collectively hold a society and shape individuals as they interact within society.

Beliefs

Man’s perception about the reality of things and shared ideas about how the world and environment operates, reflective of highly valued feelings.

Values

Broad preferences of a person on the appropriate course of action or decisions he has to take, reflecting a person’s sense of right and wrong.

Norms

Society’s standard of morality, conduct, propriety, ethics and legality which vary according to age, gender, religion, politics, economics, ethnicity or race.

Folkways

Fairly weak forms of norms whose violation is generally not considered serious; they are habits, customs, and repetitive patterns of behavior.

Mores

The set of ethical standards and moral obligation as dictates of reason that distinguishes human acts as right or wrong.

Ideas

Concepts of man's physical, social and cultural world as manifested in people's beliefs and values.

Knowledge

The body of facts and beliefs that people accumulate over time.

Enculturation

One of the processes through which culture is learned, alongside socialization.