Culture
The ways of thinking, the ways of acting, and the material objects that together form a people's way of life.
Society
People who interact in a defined territory and share a culture.
Culture shock
Personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life.
Symbol
Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture.
Language
A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another.
Cultural transmission
The process by which one generation passes culture to the next.
Sapir-Whorf thesis
Holds that people see and understand the world through the cultural lens of language.
Values
Culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living.
Beliefs
Specific ideas that people hold to be true.
Norms
Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members.
Mores
Norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance.
Folkways
Norms for routine or casual interaction.
Technology
Knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.
Hunting and gathering
The use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation for food.
Horticulture
The use of hand tools to raise crops.
Pastoralism
The domestication of animals.
Agriculture
Large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to animals or more powerful energy sources.
Industry
The production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery.
Postindustrialism
The production of information using computer technology.
High culture
Cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite.
Popular culture
Cultural patterns that are widespread among a society's population.
Subculture
Cultural patterns that set apart some segment of a society's population.
Multiculturalism
A perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions.
Eurocentrism
The dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns.
Afrocentrism
Emphasizing and promoting African cultural patterns.
Counterculture
Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society.
Cultural integration
The close relationships among various elements of a cultural system.
Cultural lag
The fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system.
Ethnocentrism
The practice of judging another cultural by the standards of one's own culture.
Cultural relativism
The practice of judging a culture by its own standards.
Cultural universals
Traits that are part of every known culture.
Sociobiology
A theoretical approach that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture.