1. Chapter 3, Culture
Key Terms

2. Culture The complex system of meaning and behavior that defines the way of life for a given group or society.
Symbols Things or behaviors to which people give meaning.

3. Cultural relativism The perspective that allows people to understand and judge cultural practices in context.
Language A set of symbols and rules, which, put together in a meaningful way, provides a complex communication system.

4. Norms Specific cultural expectations for how to behave in a given situation.
Folkways General standards of behavior adhered to by a group.

5. Mores Strict norms that control moral and ethical behavior often upheld through rules or laws.
Laws Written set of guidelines that define right and wrong in society.

6. Social sanctions Mechanisms of social control that enforce norms.
Ethnomethodology A technique for studying human interaction by deliberately disrupting social norms and observing how individuals respond.

7. Beliefs Shared ideas held collectively by people within a given culture.
Values Abstract standards in a society or group that define ideal principles.

8.  Dominant culture The culture of the most powerful group in society, the cultural form that receives the most support from major institutions and that constitutes the major belief system.
Subcultures The cultures of groups whose values and norms of behavior differ from those of the dominant culture.

9. Countercultures Subcultures created as a reaction against the values of the dominant culture.
Ethnocentrism Seeing things only from the point of view of one’s own group.

10. Androcentrism Modes of thinking centered only in men’s experiences.
Global culture The diffusion of a single culture throughout the world.

11. Popular culture Beliefs, practices, and objects that are part of everyday traditions.
Nonmaterial culture The norms, laws, customs, ideas, and beliefs of a group of people.

12. Material culture Objects created in a society: buildings, art, tools, toys, print and broadcast media, and other artifacts.
Reflection hypothesis Contends that the mass media reflect the values of the general population.

13. Cultural hegemony The pervasive and excessive influence of one culture throughout society.
Cultural capital The cultural resources that are socially designated as being worthy and that give advantages to groups possessing such capital.  

14. Culture lag The delay in cultural adjustments to changing social conditions.
Cultural diffusion The transmission of cultural elements from one society or cultural group to another.