Soc Sci 3

Instructor: April Mae A. Ydel

3 Concepts [essential for the understanding of human behavior
and social groups]:

1. Society
2. Culture
3. Personality

- no society can exist without a culture and no culture can
develop without a society.

SOCIETY formulated during the 16
th
and 17
th
century
- Totality of social organization; a group of people who
share a common culture
- Symbolizes the group within which human beings can
live a total common life: peer groups, family and kinship
groups, economic, political, religious and educational
groups and communities
- Small/large groups: they interact and possess a distinct
culture

PERSONALITY Sigmund Freud (19
th
century)
- The organization of biological, psychological, social,
culture, and situational factors which undertie a
persons behavior
- Organization of traits of the individual as it develops in
social interaction
- Develops through social interaction
Meaning of CULTURE
Derived from the Latin word cultura or cultus which
means care and cultivation.
Culture as care: the face that human infant has a
prolonged dependency, he has to be taken care of by
the people around him.
Culture as cultivation: every human being is a potential
member of his own social group; he is endowed with
certain innate qualities to make use, however, he
cannot develop these inborn talents without the other
people.
Edward B. Taylor: that complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society.
Beals, Hoyer, and Beals (1977): human capacity to
use language and with related capacities for learning
and for the transmission of ideas and ways of behaving.
Leslie A. White: an organization of phenomena that is
dependent upon symbols, phenomena which include
acts (pattern of behavior), objects (tools and things
made by tools), ideas (beliefs, knowledge), and
sentiments (attitudes, values, etc.)
T.S. Eliot, poet: the way of life of a particular people
living in one place.
Hunt, et. al., the entire way of life followed by a
people and everything learned and shared by people
in society.
Down (1975), a product of how people think about
things their cognition
Brinkerhoff and White (1988): the total way of life
shared by members of a society, which includes
language, values, and symbolic meanings and also
technology and material objects
Panopio, et. al. (1994): a persons heritage or the
customary ways in which groups organize their ways of
behaving, thinking, and feeling, which are transmitted
from one generation to another through language.
Culture also includes peoples material inventions and
accomplishments: tools, weapons, instruments.
These are called artifacts; or the material aspect of
culture; they tell much about the things a people value
and the processes with which those people provide
solutions to their biological and cultural needs.
Based on the definitions given by known sociologists an
anthropologists, it can be said that culture is the sum
total of mans creation which are handed down from
generation to generation.
2 Ideas
1. Culture as real phenomena.
- Real things and specific human activities
- Readily visible things and reality as any of the other
phenomena in nature
2. Culture as an abstraction.
- Behavior; may be observed from the activities of
the people

Importance of Culture
a. Distinguishes human beings from the lower animal
forms, making them unique
b. Limitations of a persons natural state (without culture
they cannot survive)
c. Helps us overcome our physical disadvantages

Components of Culture
1. Material Culture
- the physical objects a society produces,
things people create and use.
- They range from the prehistoric stone tools of
primitive man to the more advanced and
complex implements and machinery of
modern man.
- These are the tools, furniture, clothing,
automobiles, and computer systems, to
name a few.
- Thus, the awareness of the kind of objects
created and how people use them bring
about greater understanding of the culture
of a society.

2. Non-material Culture
- consists of elements termed norms, values,
beliefs, and language shared by the
members of a society.
- considered as the carriers of culture

2.1 Language
- symbol: the very foundation of culture
- The essence of culture is the sharing of
meanings among members of a society.
- It is through language that idea; values,
beliefs, and knowledge are transmitted,
expressed, and shared.
- Without language, there will be no culture.
2.2 Beliefs
- ideas that people hold about the universe or
any part of the total reality surrounding them.
- are things how people perceive reality.
- Result from his experiences about the
physical, biological and social world in which
he lives.
o Superstitions
o Riddles
o Philosophy
o Theology
o Technology
o Art
o Science
2.3 Values
- shared ideas about desirable goals.
- They are considered desirable or important
by the members of the society.
- the persons ideas about worth and
desirability or an abstract of what is
important and worthwhile.
Interrelated; though
similar, they are not
identical
- make up our judgments of moral and
immoral, good and bad, right or wrong,
beautiful and ugly, etc.
2.4 Norms
- shared rules of conduct that specify how
people ought to think and act.
- Are guides or models of behavior which tells
us what is proper or improper, appropriate or
inappropriate, right or wrong.
- Usually in the form of rules, standards, or
prescriptions followed by people who follow
certain roles.
- To ensure that the norms are followed and
the expectations obeyed, there are
sanctions which are used.
o Rewards
o Punishment
- has three forms: mores, folkways, and laws

Forms of Norms

1. MORES
- these are norms associated with strong ideas of right
and wrong
- are standards of conduct that are highly respected
and valued by the group and their fulfillment is felt to
be necessary and vital to group welfare.
- They represent obligatory behavior because their
infraction results to punishment, formal or informal.
- The must and should of a society.

2. FOLKWAYS
- These are norms that are simply the customary, normal,
habitual ways a group does things.
- They are the old, traditional, tried, easy ways.
- Customary ways are accumulated and become
repetitive patterns of expected behavior, which tends
to become permanent traditions.
- One of the essential features of folkways is that there is
no strong feeling of right or wrong attached to them.
- Sanctions:
o Ridicule
o Disapproval
o Embarassment
- They are handed down from one generation to
another.
- Group expectations:
- Rules of eating, cooking, drinking, dressing, sleeping,
working, forms of greetings and salutations, ceremonies
and rituals for some occasions, rules of conduct in
institutional setting and burial practices.

3. LAWS
- are often referred to as the formal norms.
- are rules that are enforced and sanctioned by the
authority of the government.
- Enforcing organizations:
o Police
o Courts
o Prisons
o Other regulatory agencies

Other Components
Fashions, Fads, Crazes
- Short-lived social norms which demand
compliance at the time they operate.
- Examples:
Style of dresses, bags, shoes, and hair
Style of houses, furniture, cars, and
gadgets
- They are powerful regulators of behavior in
urban areas and industrialized centers.
- The prestige and status of a person depends
on his use of these new styles.

Social Institutions
- When the varied social norms, beliefs and
values and material objects become regular
and organized around some fundamental
human needs, they become normative
systems or institutions.
- They are man-made ways of solving problems
that all individuals and societies face and are
organized around critical issues of survival and
are responsible for supporting the important
values of the group.
- Needs, Problems and Activities :
Sustenance and shelter
Child care and rearing
Sexual gratification
Maintenance of peace and order
Establishment of communion
between man and the supernatural
- Important Social Institutions
Family
Economic institution
Political institution
Religious institution
Educational institution
These institutions are the great
conservers and transmitters of the
cultural heritage.
They are interrelated with each
other.

Characteristics of Culture

1. Culture is learned.
- Culture is basically a creation of man.
- That culture is created and developed by man
implies that it is learned.
- The habits, skills, values, and knowledge which
constitute ones culture is acquired during the
course of ones life and not transmitted
genetically.
- Culture is learned through the process of
interaction.
2. Culture is shared.
- No one person knows the entire culture; there are
those things that an individual may know that
other person may not know, or vice versa. Hence,
the sharing of ideas.
- Only man can transmit his acquired habits and
knowledge to his offspring; culture is inculcated
orally and by writing through the medium of
language.
3. Culture is cumulative.
- Culture is said to be cumulative because it has a
tendency to grow and expand.
- Stored knowledge is transmitted from one
generation to another. Newly acquired knowledge
is then added to the stocks of knowledge as it
passes through the process of transmission.
4. Culture is dynamic.
- Change in culture is continuous and no culture is
totally fix or static.
- Cultures change from within and without.
- One of the principal sources of change is diffusion,
which involves borrowing or transfer from one
culture to another.
5. Culture is diverse.
- This means that culture varies and is different from
one another
6. Culture is ideational.
- Within the culture are group habits considered as
ideal patterns of behavior which the members are
expected to follow.
7. Culture is gratifying.
- Culture has provisions to satisfy the biological and
socio-cultural needs of man.
8. Culture is adaptive.
- All cultures are always changing and these
changes represent adjustments to the
environment.
9. Culture is integrative.
- Various elements of a given culture form a
consistent and unified whole; society always tries
to work out a balance between the unequal rates
of change among the elements in the society.





Functions of Culture
1. Culture helps people to adapt to the demands
of the surrounding physical environment.
2. Culture compensates for many human physical
limitations.
3. Culture provide ways and means to regulate
human collective existence.
4. Culture provides behavioral patterns.

THE ORGANIZATION OF CULTURE

Cultural Pattern
Is a frequently recurring and regularly ordered
trait complex of ideal and actual words and
actions which a number of persons conform to
under similar situations.
The relatedness of the cultural patterns in some
kind of meaningful relationships.
Within the culture are various culture patterns
revolving around certain activities such as the
economic, religious, political and educational
activities.

Levels of Cultural Participation

The levels of participation of the individuals in a
culture vary depending on age, sex, occupation
or the demands of the culture.
Linton (1936: 272-273) classifies the levels of
cultural participation into three namely:

1. Culture Universals
Are the cultural traits, complexes, and
patterns shared among all members of a
given population (habits, ideas, and
conditioned emotional responses
common to members of the society).
2. Specialties
Are behavior expectations confined to
certain subgroups which often demand
unusual skill or training and reflect the
division of labor and hierarchy of statuses
in a culture.
Not shared by the total population.
Special trainings are required (doctors,
lawyers, engineers, accountants).
3. Alternatives
Are the behavior expectations which
permit a certain range of choice in
human behavior and specify the
tolerable variations in behavior.
Shared by some individuals but are not
common to all the members of the
society or even to all the members of
any one group (ways of eating, greeting,
courtship, rearing children, and other
aspects of social living).

SUBCULTURE
Smaller groups which develop norms and values
different from that of the broader society.
May be based on age, social class,
occupational groups, religions, regional groups,
nationality and ethnicity.
Example:
Special language, set of norms and
values of a group of urban adolescents
Lifestyle of the upper class
While these subcultures have distinctive norms
and values they still contain the dominant values
and norms of the broader society.
This is what has been called:
a small culture within a culture.

CONTRA-CULTURE
When the subculture emphasizes conflict
between a group and a larger society as seen by
the presence of an inverse or counter culture.
What they believe in is not shared by the majority
of the members of the society.
Examples:
Drug addicts
Hippies
Criminals
Juvenile delinquents
Rebels
These subgroups become a threat to the
prevailing social values and become considered
a social problem.

Ethnocentrism
The feeling that ones culture is the best and
superior to that of other groups.
Each group has pride in his own group.
Example:
Germans as the superior race
Americans and Japanese as the most
progressive nation in the world
Philippines as the Pearl of the Orient
Seas
Catholicism/Islam as the true religion

Culture Shock
A result of disorganization and frustration when a
person encounters another culture whose
pattern of behavior and ideas are different from
his.
A situation brought about by unfamiliarity, lack of
understanding and inability to communicate with
the host culture.
Examples:
When a person goes to societies of
primitive people.
When a conservative Filipino migrates to
the United States.
Social distances in foreign cultures
In some countries, it is a social faux pas
to use your left hand, to pass anything to
anyone else.

Cultural Relativism
The view that all beliefs, customs, and ethics are
relative to the individual within his own social
context.
Respect of other cultures and treating them as
"as good as" one's own.
The cultural practices and values of other people
which we may consider queer, funny, or immoral
may be considered right, appropriate, and moral
in other cultures.
Culture is relative and no cultural practice is
good or bad by itself.
Why do the Chinese use chopsticks?
Why do they bring food to the
cemetery?
Why do Italian males kiss in greeting?
Why do Muslims and Hindus refuse to eat
pork?
Why do some simple societies consider
premarital sex as immoral?
Why do Eskimos lend their wives to their
visitors?
Why do Muslims practice polygamy?
Why do Americans practice divorce?

Anthropological views:
All cultures are of equal value and need
to be studied from a neutral point of
view.
The study of a and/or any culture has to
be done with a cold and neutral eye so
that a particular culture can be
understood at its own merits and not
another cultures.