2.2 Culture, Norms, Language

Please review:  Levine, Robert and Wolff, Ellen.  Social Time: The Heartbeat of Culture.  Psychology Today. 1985.          

HW: Kohl's Values Americans Live By

As we learned in our last lesson, humans are born to be nurtured.  We are social beings born into communities of other people.  The larger communities of people who share meaning in everyday life form a culture.  So as babies we are born into a culture.  Because culture is so omnipresent, it surrounds us before we are even born.  And so, similar to how a fish has never known what it is like to live out of water, humans have been surrounded by culture their whole lives.  Thus, culture is the first force of socialization, or nurture, that we are influenced by.

Culture as a fishbowl

Google Form for this Lesson

1.  What's the difference between material and non-material culture?

2.  How is a fishbowl a metaphor for culture?

The Sociological Imagination and Social Construction of Culture

The documentary Babies (2010) follows four babies in different cultures from before birth throughout their first year of development.  You can watch the trailer here or by clicking below.  And this post has more about the film.

In the fishbowl metaphor, the baby is born into the bowl surrounded by both material and nonmaterial culture.

Culture Shock

Because we are so ingrained in culture, when we experience a different culture, it can affect us emotionally. When we are exposed to a culture we have not lived in, we can experience culture shock.  In the example of the fishbowl, imagine bringing a fish home from a carnival or a pet store.  When you dump the fish into the new bowl, it might be a shock - imagine how you feel when jumping into a cold swimming pool. 

One example of culture shock from my life was discovering the Japanese toilet.  At first, the experience can be a culture shock as the traditional Japanese toilet is very different from ours.  

In the case of the Japanese toilet, not only does it look and function differently from ours, but it also represents fundamentally different non-material culture. The Japanese are very germ conscious and they try hard not to spread germs. They also do not have a lot of furniture - they do not sit on furniture in their houses so why would they sit on a porcelain throne in a bathroom? And finally, they are used to sitting and squatting in positions difficult for westerners.

What is the shared meaning behind the Japanese toilet?
Materially: what is it?

Non-materially: How to use it? Why use it? 

The Japanese do have a "Western style" toilet that is more like the toilet that Americans are used to, however, it still represents differences in both - its material and non-material culture.

In either case, the point is that there is nothing "natural" about culture. In other words, there are no weird ways of doing things that come quite natural to us. There are only different ways of doing things. And material culture, although physically different, often represents a different non-material culture, such as a different way of thinking about the world.

Ethnocentrism

If we are not in shock about the cultural difference, sometimes we judge other cultures by our own standards. This is called ethnocentrism.  For example, an American might travel to another culture and think, "Why would they want to squat to use the toilet?  Isn't that uncomfortable?  They should use a toilet the way we do - it's much better because it's more comfortable."  That would be ethnocentric.  In the fishbowl metaphor ethnocentrism is a person outside of the bowl looking in and judging the fish.  "Why doesn't the fish go in the castle?  That's what a castle is for."

Cultural Relativity
Instead of judging other cultures, sociologists seek cultural relativity or trying to understand a culture from that culture's own standards.  This will help us to understand people better and be more empirical and less judgemental.  Below is a graphic image called the Iceberg of Culture, originally printed in a 1984 American Foreign Service Handbook (cited by sociologist Robin DiAngelo, 2016 and digitally designed by Dr. Robert Sweetland on his website for educators.)  

Cultural Universals and Human Nature

Although the first glance of a new culture might lead us to an emotional response like culture shock or ethnocentrism, when sociologists (and anthropologists) take a step back, they find many general aspects of culture are similar around the world.  These similar cultural traits are called cultural universals.  Many of the components of the iceberg above can generally be considered cultural universals even though the expression of those universals are different.  Because culture universals are ubiquitous among humans, they might be considered innate, or part of our human nature.  Many of these relate to the interaction between humans.  It is in our human nature to be nurtured.  We need others to survive so we are wired to connect with other people.

3.  When engaging in cross-cultural study, what should we be mindful of?  

4.  Instead, how should we approach culture?  

Cultural Differences and Human Nurture

Although cultural universals might be similar to humans around the world, the specific way we express these universals might be different.  These differences begin even before birth as the cultural norms of one group of people affect the expecting mother (and her baby).  This results in different influences on us based on our culture. And that difference continues throughout our lives as we learn the  shared meanings of our culture.  For example, what does it mean to bath or "be clean"? To eat or have "food"?  To get ready to go out or wear "clothes"?  All of these have different meanings based on your culture, so individuals are nurtured differently depending on their culture.

Levine and Wolff published an article about different ways that social scientists researched time in various cultures.  See the article called Social Time here.

 Using the article, please answer these questions:

5. How did the author conduct cross-cultural research about time in the U.S. and Brazil?

6. What did he find quantitatively and qualitatively?

7. What does the social construction of the shared meaning of being "late" reveal?

8.  What other data did researchers use to study time around the world?

What are norms?

Norms are the shared expectations about behavior - the meaning applied to how we interact with a group of people.  Norms vary around the world.  One example of this is the norms centered around time, as in the article you read for homework.  How do people from different cultures think about time differently? What do they consider late or early?  These are norms. 

Why are norms important? 

There are two important general lessons from norms:

• When interacting with other cultures, recognizing norms is important because if we fail to acknowledge these differences, we run the risk of offending someone or even a whole culture of people.
• Second, norms help us see that we have been shaped to behave a certain way;  they are an illustration that we are socialized by our nurture.  Norms an example of the shared meaning that we learn as we grow up.  

And this graphic explains varying norms from around the world.

Also for more humor on cultural differences, checkout these HSBC adds:  Eels, personal space, wrong flower,

Sociological Literacy:  Different types of norms; folkways, mores, taboos

Example of a dinner with your family and significant other.

Norms that are less important are called folkways. Folkways are not crucial to the order of society and if you were to violate a folkway people would not necessarily judge you.  A folkway in the United States might be addressing adults by "Mr" or "Ms" or driving the speed limit.  A folkway at a dinner party might be not putting your elbows on the table.  Finally, a folkway at SHS might be showing up to class on time or

Mores (pronounce mor AYS) are norms important to the order of a society. If you violate them, it will cause a disruption in the social setting.  It is worth noting that these mores, although very important to the society, are not necessarily laws. Similar to the ideas of time being a social construct, they are just the way that people operate and even though they are not written into laws, they are important to the function of society.  The more of how to cross a street can be found in lots of videos on youtube.   Watch this video of an intersection in India and think about who has the right of way? There may not be a law about it, but those drivers know what they are doing.  Would an American know the more of how to cross the street?  Note how the person crossing the street is aware of the norms of traffic and so the pedestrian successfully crosses without getting hit.

When I was in Italy, it took me six days to figure out how to cross the street. There were scooters and cars swerving everywhere and honking. Every time I tried to cross the street, cars would screech to a stop and swear at me in Italian. Then I figured out how to do it.   Just walk a steady pace across the street and let them avoid you - and it worked!  This knowledge of how to cross the street is an important norm, what sociologists call a more.  

And a British explanation of Italian street crossing norms here.

Finally, the most serious norms are taboos.  Taboos are things that you do not even want to think about because it is embarrassing to even imagine it.  For example, look at this port-a-potty created by an artist in Switzerland.  Would you be able to use it?

This is how it looks from the inside:

Would you be able to use a toilet if it looked like everyone could see you, even though you knew they could not?  This is a taboo because even though people could not see us, the mere thought of them seeing us would make us hesitant. In other words, simply thinking about doing this is embarrassing and so we don't want to even think about it.  Perhaps, that is why we have so many euphemisms for using the toilet: using the john, the restroom, the bathroom, the lavatory, the men's room, washroom, powder room?

Example of norms from your life
9. Have you experienced a different set of norms from another culture either by traveling somewhere or by meeting a foreigner here in America? What was it like? Were there misunderstandings?
Something else that you might want to inquire about is another culture's norms;  where you would like to travel?  What are all of the norms you should know if you travel there?  Find out what unique norms exist in their culture. Here is a link to cultural etiquette around the world.

What are norms in general?  How do the norms of folkways, mores and taboos differ?

Language and shared meaning

Language itself is a cultural universal and part of human nature.  But the different meanings of language shared within each culture is an example of nurture.  People learn different meanings from their language.

Answer a few Questions about language without reading ahead:

10.  One of the shapes below is called a "Takete" and the other is called a "Malunga."  Take a guess which one is which:

            Shape A                    Shape B

11. Which one of the color circles below does not belong with the other two?

12. Which word does not belong or is the most different for each set below:

Set 1. Auto, turtle, basket, bird

Set 2. Laundry, beer, clothing

Set 3. A chair, a spear, a couch 

13. What are three words to describe this bridge:

What is the importance of language?

Language is important because it affects how we think. When we think about something, we are using language inside of our heads so if we use certain words or do not have certain words, it may affect how think about things especially how we categorize something.   We even think based on how words sound.  

For example, takete and malunga.  Takete sounds harsh and therefore angular.  Malunga sounds softer and rounded.  But these are just made up words.  

Shape A                    Shape B

What is the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis?

The importance of language was first highlighted by researchers, Saphir and Whorf.  Their hypothesis and conclusion was that language shapes how people think, especially when categorizing and naming.  For example, in the color samples above, Americans typically group the chips by blue and green, but Tarahumara people do not have a word for blue and green, instead they have words that mean the color of water and the color of night.  Because each group of people have different words with different meanings, it shapes how they think.

Another example of language's effects on our thinking is here (see page 43 of this doc), a lesson from Carol Mukhopadhyay on classifying in other cultures.  For each of the following sets, choose the item that does not belong:

Set 1. Auto, turtle, basket, bird

Students generally select auto or basket using the culturally familiar categorizing device of machines vs. non-machines or and movement vs. non-movement. At least some non-western cultural groups, however, would see birds as most different because their culture emphasizes shape and birds are relatively angular rather than rounded in shape. Our culture tends to emphasize use or functionality. Thus correctness would be culture-dependent.

Set 2. Laundry, beer, clothing

Students generally, with great assurance, select beer as most different. Functionality places clothing and washing machines together. Yet, at least one culture views clothing as different because laundry and beer are both “foamy”. Visual appearance is most salient. US slang for beer (“suds”) also recognizes the attribute of foaminess.

Set 3. A chair, a spear, a couch 

Students again select the “wrong” answer—at least from the perspective of traditional West African cultures. US Americans tend to emphasize use, thus placing couch and chair together as types of sitting devices (i.e. “furniture”). Ashanti apparently would see the “couch” as the most different because both a chair and a spear can symbolize authority.

Evidence of different languages with genderized nouns shaping how people think about those things:

Lera Boroditsky, professor of cognitive science and cultural psychology has published research that concludes language affects how we think.  Her evidence is in the genderization of nouns in different cultures.  Here she is explaining her research at Ted.  Here is an explanation from NPR about Boroditsky's research and how language shapes our description of bridges.  This Psychology Today article explains more about the importance of genderizing nouns in language.  This NPR story highlights how language affects our thinking, especially for bilingual speakers.  

More evidence for the effect of language on thinking:

• The NY Times ran a story about how the idea of language affecting our thoughts. See that article here. 
  
• The ASA's Society Pages shares research by sociologist Matt Wray highlighted on NPR's Code Switch.  Why would using the term "white trash" support white supremacy?
• This New Yorker article explains the research of professor Adam Alter on the hidden power of words and naming.
• Also, here is a study explaining that without language, numbers do not make sense.
• This episode of On Being from NPR is about Rabbi Heschel who insightfully explained "words create worlds."  Here is a link to a medium article about Heschel and words.  And this link to a passage about the importance of words from Heschel to William Blake. 
• David Treuer is an Ojibway translator who explains the power and importance of language on this episode of On Being.
• The episode Lost in Translation from NPR's Hidden Brain is a social science podcast from NPR and this episode explores how language shapes our thoughts.
• Also, see this post about politics and how the use of English frames every debate especially the debate over gun violence.
• Here is a list of untranslatable ideas about love from around the world.
• In Other Words is a book that highlights untranslatable words from around the world.