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Sociological Social Psychology: People as Symbol Makers Part 2 SOC. 230 LECTURE 2

KATHERINE WATSON, PHD.

Culture Symbols provide the mechanism by which we create and acquire culture:

◦ Ways of thinking, feeling and acting of a group or society

◦ Idioculture: system of shared knowledge, beliefs, sentiments, and behaviours that serves as a frame of reference and basis of interaction for group members

◦ Shared cultural symbols (such as language) allow us to interact; define situations and give guidelines for behaviour.

Material Culture ◦ The tangible artifacts and physical objects found in a given culture

Non-material Culture ◦ The intangible and abstract components of a society, including values and norms

Values: beliefs about ideal goals and behaviours

Social Norms: are rules, whether written or unwritten, that people are expected to follow as members of a particular group, community, or society

◦ Folkways: informal norms that suggest customary ways of behaving ◦ Mores: norms that carry a strong sense of social importance ◦ Laws: norms that are formally defined and enacted in legislation ◦ Sanction: a penalty for norm violation

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Culture Five defining features 1. Culture is learned 2. Culture is shared 3. Culture is transmitted 4. Culture is cumulative 5. Culture is human

Cultural Universals

Language and Culture

A language is an abstract systems of sounds, signs and gestures by which we express thoughts, feelings, ideas, plans and desires

◦ Language is a key identifier of cultural boundaries

◦ Cultural survival is often linked to language

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Does Language Define Thought? Create Behaviour?

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis ◦ The way language is structured has significance for the way we experience the world ◦ Provides different tools to organize and interpret the world

◦ E.g. The HOPI

◦ Language expresses our reality and structures it at the same time.

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Language structures our perceptions We make sense of each other through naming and applying categories.

◦ Stereotype: A mental image that attributes a common set of characteristics to members of a particular group. Page 70

◦ Positive and negative: halo effect ◦ Oversimplification of putting people into categories ◦ Unreliable and harmful as they may be overgeneralizations ◦ Age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, occupation ◦ Assessment of others allow us to anticipate their actions and plan our own actions. ◦ Page 78 Summary at the bottom of the page.

Meaning For SI the meaning of things, events, people, categories etc. are socially created phenomenon.

◦ Extrinsic: not innate to the object but rather conferred from the outside depending on name and use. ◦ Meaning is not fixed but varies with time, culture, situation and people’s actions ◦ Meanings emerge and transform through our communication and interaction

Power and Culture Dominant Culture—mainstream, “invisible” and powerful

Subculture ◦ A group within a population whose values, norms, folkways or mores set them apart

from the mainstream culture ◦ Maybe be based on race, ethnicity and religion; age; sexuality, etc.

◦ E.g., Mennonite and Amish communities; Sikh communities; Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Trans communities

A Counterculture ◦ A type of subculture that strongly opposes the widely held cultural patterns of the

larger population ◦ E.g., Hippies, Sons of Freedom, Hells Angels, Squamish Five

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