1. © 2014 Wadsworth Cengage Learning Culture and Nature So really, what are you like deep down inside?”

2. Chapter Topics  Nature and Social Behavior  Culture and Human Social Life  Important Features of Human Social Life

3. Discussion: Nature and Culture  Which do you think is a more powerful force on human behavior: nature or culture? Why?  What do you think are advantages of being a cultural species? What are the disadvantages?

4. Debate: Gender Identity  Consider the case of Brenda, who was born a boy, but raised as a girl after a botched circumcision  What does this say about the limits of socialization?  What do stories such as this suggest about culture versus nature?  Do you believe sex differences to be more innate or more socialized? http://youtu.be/3GhbVFjIaN0

5. Explaining the Psyche  What is the psyche?  A broad term for mind, encompassing emotions, desires, perceptions, and all other psychological processes  How is the psyche shaped by nature and culture? https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/nature-vs-nurture https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/nature-vs-nurture  How do nature and culture interact with each other?

6. Nature Defined  How is nature explained in human behavior?  Genes, hormones, brain structure and other innate processes dictate one’s choices and actions  Over the last two decades, many people have focused on how evolution influences social behavior

7. Evolution, and Doing What’s Natural  The theory of evolution focuses on how change occurs in nature  Natural selection decides which traits will endure, and which will disappear  Survival: living long enough to reproduce  Reproduction: producing babies that also reproduce  Mutation: new gene or combination of genes

8. Social Animals  Humans are social animals, and seek connections to others  What are some ways that people connect with others?  Being social offers evolutionary benefits  Can find more food  Can mate and reproduce easier  Can alert each other to danger  Can take care of sick and injured

9. The Social Brain Social brain theory  Animals with bigger brains live in larger, more complex social groups (Dunbar, 1993, 1996)  How is living in larger groups more complicated?  Why would living in larger groups require larger brains?

11. Social Animal or Cultural Animal?  What is culture?  An information-based system includes shared ideas and common ways of doing things  What makes humans cultural animals (as opposed to merely social animals)?

12. Culture Defined  Important features of culture  Shared ideas  What ideas do Democrats and Republicans share?  Culture as a system  How do we depend more on our encounters with other people than with the natural world?  Culture as praxis  How do shared behaviors influence culture?  Culture, information, and meaning  How does language shape culture?

13. Food for Thought  How does culture influence what we eat?  Nature: Humans are naturally inclined to eat meat  Culture: Many religions dictate what food can be eaten, and vegetarians often say that it is wrong to eat animals

14. Social Side of Sex  Debate over whether human sexuality is the result nature or nurture?  Aspects of sexuality common across culture may be rooted in nature.  Some aspects of sexuality show influence of culture.  Differences exist within cultures as well.

15. Common Aspects of Sexuality  In all cultures men have a desire for more sex partners than women.  Same basic sex practices known in most cultures.  All cultures have runs about sex.  All cultures have made efforts to control conception.  All cultures have some form of prostitution

16. Culture influences in Sexuality  Guam – a law prohibits a women from marrying while a virgin.  Turkey – women are expected to be virgins until they marry.  Indonesia - law prohibits masturbation, people caught doing this crime are beheaded.  Lebanese – men who have sex with male animals are subject to the death penalty, but is perfectly legal to have sex with a female animal.

17. Nature and Culture Interacting  How do nature and culture interact to influence us?  Professional athletes are likely to be born in January because as kids, they are in leagues with younger, smaller kids  Younger kids drop out more often; older, larger, more coordinated kids get more attention from coaches

18. Nature and Culture Interacting (cont’d.)  Co-evolution: nature shapes culture, and culture shapes nature  How is being a cultural animal different than being a social animal (e.g., an elephant or an ant)?  Language  Division of labor (bees vs. football team)  Ability to solve disagreements (violence vs. cultural norms)

19. The Duplex Mind  Automatic system  Outside of consciousness  Simple operations  Always on, even in sleep  Conscious system  Complex operations  Turns off during sleep

20. What is the Role of Consciousness?  Increased scientific focus on role of automatic system  Can learn, think, choose, and respond  Has ideas and emotions  Knows “self” and other people  Consciousness focuses on complex thinking and logic  How do complex thinking and logic affect our behaviors?  Are they necessary for everyday life?

21. How They Work Together  Automatic system makes conscious thought possible  Conscious override: deliberate system can suppress automatic urges  When have you used conscious override?

22. The Long Road to Social Acceptance  Working to gain social acceptance  People learn to work within cultural bounds  In Victorian era, cursing and picking your nose was unacceptable; today, cursing is often accepted, but picking your nose is not

23. Built to Relate  How have human emotions evolved to help bond people together in tighter (and more evolutionarily advantageous) social groups?  Automatic processes prepare us for interactions with other groups  Why do people feel aggressive when thinking about groups they don’t like?

24. Nature Says Go; Culture Says Stop  Nature: impulses, wishes, automatic responses  Culture: teaches self-control and restraint  Exceptions  Nature’s disgust reactions (Stop)  Cultural timetable for meals (Go)

25. Selfish Impulse Versus Social Conscience  Why does nature make us selfish?  Natural selection: preservation of self  Why would culture ask us to resist selfish impulses?  Consideration of what is best for society  Morality works best for small, close-knit groups  Laws take the place of morality for suppressing selfish urges with larger groups

26. Putting People First  How do human senses vary from other animals’?  Dogs hear many things humans cannot, but they do not hear as precisely as humans do  How does each way of hearing change the lifestyle of the animal?  How is culture a “general store” of information?  How do other animals figure things out, if not through culture?

27. Putting People First (cont’d.)  People look to each other first  Asch: Line-judging task  Participants were asked to look at which line fit best  Confederates in group gave wrong answer; many participants did, too Why are people influenced more by others who are perceived as similar to themselves?

28. What Makes Us Human?  Human life is enmeshed in culture  What common themes do cultures share?  What unique problems does culture create?  Why and how is knowledge shared from generation to generation?  Humans think with language and meaning  How does this influence our behavior?  What is the evolutionary advantage of language?

29. Conclusion  Human behavior results from a mix of nature and culture  Nature and culture interact with each other to influence human behavior  Culture is a powerful force on people, even overcoming nature at times