3.2 Elements of Culture

Values and Beliefs

Two crucial elements that define the variability between cultures are values and beliefs. Values are a culture’s standard for discerning desirable states in society (what is true, good, just, or beautiful). They are “culturally defined goals, purposes, and interests,” which comprise “a frame of aspirational reference” as Robert Merton put it (Merton, 1938). Values are deeply embedded and critical for transmitting and teaching a culture’s beliefs. Beliefs are tenets or convictions that people hold to be true. Individuals in a society have specific beliefs, but they also share collective values.

To illustrate the difference, North Americans commonly believe that anyone who works hard enough will be successful and wealthy. Underlying this belief is the value that both work and wealth are good and desirable. In contrast, the Chinese Taoist concept of wu wei (not-doing or not-making) is based on the belief that “the way of things in the world” (the Tao) unfolds spontaneously. Therefore, learning how to “not-work” and to allow life to unfold in the integrated and spontaneous way natural to it, without deliberate effort, is seen as a virtue (te) and is a shared, collective value.

Values help shape a society by suggesting what is good and bad, beautiful, and ugly, and what should be sought or avoided. Consider the value that North American culture places upon youth. Children represent innocence and purity, while a youthful adult appearance signifies liveliness and sexuality. Shaped by this value, North Americans spend millions of dollars each year on cosmetic products and surgeries to look young and beautiful.

Values are not static; they vary across time and between groups as people evaluate, debate, and change collective societal beliefs. For example, the change in the laws (the Cannabis Act) governing cannabis use in Canada shifted from prohibition to legalization and regulation in October 2018, largely because of a change in the underlying values of Canadians. Where cannabis consumption had been presented as a sign of immoral character in the early 20th century campaigns to prohibit it, law makers in the 21st century recognized that a majority of the population disagreed. Many in fact regarded it as medicinal, as a means to attain the positive value of health and well-being. Others regarded it as matter of personal choice or right within a sphere of personal autonomy that should not be interfered with by moral authorities or states. It appears that Canadian values changed priority: from the virtue of abstinence to the virtues of health or personal autonomy.

Values often suggest how people should behave, but they do not accurately reflect how people do behave. It is easy to value good health, but it is hard to quit eating chips. Marital monogamy is valued, but many spouses engage in infidelity. Regardless, values (1) affect how one perceives or feels towards things (i.e., they have a significant emotional content); (2) provide a “vocabulary of motives” that allows one to interpret and explain one’s own and other’s behaviour; and (3) create a basis for shared commonalities and trust — Durkheim’s “collective conscience” — that allow cooperation to take place through time. When values are not shared, there is mistrust, which makes collective concerted action more difficult (Thome, 2015).

Norms

So far, the examples in this chapter have often described how people are expected to behave in certain situations — for example, when buying food or boarding a bus. These examples describe the visible and invisible rules of conduct through which societies are structured, or what sociologists call norms. As opposed to values and beliefs which identify desirable states and convictions about how things are, a norm is a generally accepted way of doing things. Norms define how to behave in accordance with what a society values and has defined as good, right, and important. They define the rules that govern behaviour.

Just as values vary from culture to culture, so do norms. For example, cultures differ in their norms about what kinds of physical closeness are appropriate in public. It is rare to see two male friends or coworkers holding hands in Canada where that behaviour often symbolizes romantic feelings. But in many nations, masculine physical intimacy is considered natural in public. A simple gesture, such as hand-holding, carries great symbolic differences across cultures.

Most members of the society adhere to norms because their violation invokes some degree of sanction. Sanctions are a form of social control, a way to encourage conformity to cultural norms. They define the punishments and rewards that govern behaviour. These can be understood to operate at various levels of formality.

Formal norms are established, written rules. They are behaviours worked out and agreed upon in order to suit and serve most people. Laws are formal norms, but so are employee manuals, college entrance exam requirements, and the “no running” rule at swimming pools. Formal norms are the most specific and clearly stated of the various types of norms, and the most strictly enforced. But even formal norms are enforced to varying degrees, reflected in cultural values.

There are plenty of formal norms, but the list of informal norms — casual behaviours that are generally and widely conformed to — is longer. People learn informal norms by observation, imitation, and general socialization. Some informal norms are taught directly — “kiss your Aunt Edna” or “use your napkin” — while others are learned by observation, including observations of the consequences when someone else violates a norm. Children learn quickly that picking their nose is subject to ridicule when they see someone shamed by others for doing it. Although informal norms define personal interactions, they extend into other systems as well. Think back to the discussion of fast food restaurants at the beginning of this chapter. In Canada, there are informal norms regarding behaviour at these restaurants. Customers line up to order their food and leave when they are done. They do not sit down at a table with strangers, sing loudly as they prepare their condiments, or nap in a booth. Most people do not commit even benign breaches of informal norms. Informal norms dictate appropriate behaviours without the need of written rules.

Making Connections: Sociological Research

Breaching Experiments

Sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011) studied people’s everyday interactions in order to find out how tacit and often unconscious societal rules and norms not only influenced behaviour but enabled the social order to exist (Weber, 2011). Like the symbolic interactionists, he believed that members of society together create a working consensus in different situations which produces social order. He noted, however, that people often draw on inferred knowledge and unspoken agreements to do so. His resulting book, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), discusses the underlying assumptions and tacit knowledges that people rely on to navigate and make sense of the world. Ethnomethodology is a paradigm of interpretive sociology that studies “the body of common-sense knowledge and the range of procedures and considerations by means of which ordinary members of society make sense of, find their way about in, and act on the circumstances in which they find themselves” (Heritage, 1984).

One of his research methods was known as a breaching experiment. His breaching experiments tested sociological concepts of social norms and conformity. In a breaching experiment, the researcher purposely breaks a social norm or behaves in a socially awkward manner. The participants are not aware an experiment is in progress. If the breach is successful, however, these innocent bystanders will respond in some way. For example, he had his students go into local shops and begin to barter with the sales clerks for fixed price goods. “This says $14.99, but I’ll give you $10 for it.” Often the clerks were shocked or flustered because the common sense norms of shopping had been broken. This breach reveals the unspoken convention in North America that the amount given on the price tag is the price. It also breaks a number of other unspoken conventions which seek to make commercial transactions as efficient and impersonal as possible. How people respond to restore order or to provide an account of the norm violation that makes the situation “make sense” was a focus of these experiments.

The point of the experiments was not that the experimenter would simply act obnoxiously or weird in public. Rather, the point is to deviate from a specific social norm in a small way, to subtly break some form of social etiquette or common speech, and see what happens. Garfinkel suspected that odd behaviours would shatter conventional expectations, but he was not sure how. The reactions of outrage, anger, puzzlement, or other emotions to the breaking of relatively trivial norms, illustrated the deep level of unconscious investment people have in keeping this web of tacit conventions intact. They are essential in maintaining a common, shared sense of the orderliness and predictability of the world. Without them subjects were often flustered. The social situation threatened to become completely senseless unless the breach was rectified. To challenge the known-in-common background — “what should be plain for everyone to see” — leads to bewilderment. The take away is that society itself is only possible to the degree that bewilderment is kept at bay.

Folkways, Mores, and Taboos

Norms may be further classified as mores, folkways, or taboos. Mores (pronounced mor–ays) are norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group. They are based on social requirements. Violating them can have serious consequences. The strongest mores are legally protected with laws or other formal norms. In Canada, for instance, murder is considered immoral, and it is punishable by law (a formal norm). More often, mores are judged and guarded by public sentiment (an informal norm). People who violate mores are seen as shameful. They can even be shunned or banned from some groups. The mores of the Canadian school system require that a student’s writing be in the student’s own words or else the student should use special stylistic forms such as quotation marks and a system of citation, like APA (American Psychological Association) or MLA (Modern Language Association) style, for crediting the words to other writers. Writing another person’s words as if they are one’s own has a name: plagiarism. The consequences for violating this norm are severe and can even result in expulsion.

Unlike mores, folkways are norms without any moral underpinnings. They are based on social preferences. Folkways direct appropriate behaviour in the day-to-day practices and expressions of a culture. Folkways indicate whether to shake hands or kiss on the cheek when greeting another person. They specify whether to wear a tie and a blazer or a T-shirt and sandals to an event. In Canada, women can smile and say hello to men on the street. In Egypt, it is not acceptable. In northern Europe, it is fine for people to go into a sauna or hot tub naked. Often in North America, it is not. An opinion poll that asked Canadian women what they felt would end a relationship after a first date showed that women in British Columbia were pickier than women in the rest of the country (Times Colonist, 2014). First date deal breakers included poor hygiene (82%), being distracted by a mobile device (74%), talking about sexual history and being rude to waiters (72%), and eating with one’s mouth open (60%). These examples illustrate breaking informal rules, which are not serious enough to be called mores, but are serious enough to terminate a relationship before it has begun. Folkways might be small manners, but they are by no means trivial.

Taboos refer to actions which are strongly forbidden by deeply held sacred or moral beliefs. They are the strongest and most deeply held norms. Their transgression evokes revulsion and severe punishment. In its original use taboo referred to being “consecrated, inviolable, forbidden, unclean, or cursed” (Cook & King, 1784). There was a clear supernatural context for the prohibition; the act offended the gods or ancestors and evoked their retribution. In secular contexts, taboos refer to powerful, moral prohibitions that protect what are regarded as inviolable bonds between people. Incest, pedophilia, and patricide or matricide are taboos.

Many mores, folkways, and taboos are taken for granted in everyday life. People need to act without thinking to get seamlessly through daily routines; they cannot stop and analyze every action (Sumner, 1906). They become part of routines, or cultural practices. As Dorothy Smith (1999) put it, the different levels of norm enable the “ongoing concerting and coordinating of individuals’ activities.”  These different levels of norm help people negotiate their daily life within a given culture, and as such their study is crucial for understanding the distinctions between different cultures.

Practices

Even an action as seemingly simple as commuting to work evidences a great deal of cultural propriety. Take the case of going to work on public transportation. Whether commuting in Dublin, Cairo, Mumbai, or Vancouver, many behaviours will be the same in all locations, but significant differences also arise between cultures. Typically, in Canada, a passenger finds a marked bus stop or station, waits for the bus or train, pays an agent before or after boarding, and quietly takes a seat if one is available. But when boarding a bus in Cairo, passengers might have to run, because buses there often do not come to a full stop to take on patrons. Dublin bus riders are expected to extend an arm to indicate that they want the bus to stop for them. When boarding a commuter train in Mumbai, passengers must squeeze into overstuffed cars amid a lot of pushing and shoving on the crowded platforms. That kind of behaviour would be considered the height of rudeness in Canada, but in Mumbai it reflects the daily challenges of getting around on a train system that is taxed to capacity.

In this example of commuting, the different cultural practices are seen as various solutions to a common problem, the problem of public transportation by bus. The problem is shared, but the solutions are different. Practices in general are simply ways of doing things. The idea of a cultural practice indicates that a way of doing things is embedded in a particular culture. They express a particular way of seeing and interpreting the world, a particular type of know-how or practical knowledge, a particular set of social expectations and constraints, and a particular set of customs or traditions.

Symbols and Culture

Humans, consciously and subconsciously, are always striving to make sense of their surrounding world. Symbols—such as gestures, signs, objects, signals, and words—help people understand that world. They provide communication methods to understanding experiences by conveying recognizable meanings that are shared by societies.

The world is filled with symbols. Sports uniforms, company logos, and traffic signs are symbols. In some cultures, a gold ring is a symbol of marriage. Some symbols are highly functional; stop signs, for instance, provide useful instruction. As physical objects, they belong to material culture, but because they function as symbols, they also convey nonmaterial cultural meanings. Some symbols are valuable only in what they represent. Trophies, blue ribbons, or gold medals, for example, represent accomplishments. But many objects have both material and nonmaterial symbolic value.

Symbols often get noticed when they are out of context. Used unconventionally, they convey strong messages. A stop sign placed on the door of a college building makes a political statement, as does a camouflage military jacket worn in an antiwar protest. Together, the semaphore signals for “N” and “D” represent nuclear disarmament—and form the well-known peace sign (Westcott, 2008). Some college students wear pajamas and bedroom slippers to class, clothing that was formerly associated only with privacy and bedtime. By wearing the outfit, students are defying traditional cultural norms.

Some symbols represent only one side of the story and elicit strong emotions, which can lead to social unrest. Their presence is a reminder of a nation’s worst times and not something to celebrate. Many of these symbols are targets of vandalism as the destruction of these representations is symbolic. Effigies representing public figures are burned to demonstrate anger at certain leaders. In 1989, crowds tore down the Berlin Wall, a decades-old symbol of the division between East and West Germany, communism, and capitalism. In the U.S. beginning in 2019, statues associated with slavery and the Civil War were removed from state capitols, college campuses, and public parks. In Germany, any display of Hitler or Nazi memorabilia or to deny the Holocaust is illegal.

While different cultures have varying systems of symbols, one system is common to all: language. Whatever its form, people learn social and cultural norms through it.

Language and Symbols

Language is a system that uses symbols with which people communicate and through which culture is transmitted. Letters (which make up words), pictographs, and hand gestures are all symbols that create a language used for communication. Sign language, for example, requires an intimate knowledge not only of an alphabet but also of signs that represent entire words and the meaning indicated by certain facial expressions or postures. Its grammar differs from the spoken language. As spoken language is different across regions, nations and cultures, and can even differ by the age of the person, so too does sign language.

All language systems contain the same basic elements that are effective in communicating ideas – object, subject, action. A written language system consists of symbols that refer to spoken sound. Taken together, these symbols convey specific meanings. The English language uses a combination of twenty-six letters to create words. These twenty-six letters make up over 600,000 recognized words (OED Online, 2011). We can compare the reliance on tone and inflection to Mandarin Chinese. It contains over 8,000 characters, but the same character may symbolize different concepts depending on the tone used.

English today contains an English and French version for the same concept. For example, in the English version, one eats, but in French version, one dines. In the English version, we meet someone. In the French version, we encounter someone. Readers of American English may be surprised by the inclusion of a ‘u’ in some spellings of words like ‘behaviour’ or ‘flavour.’ Americans have dropped that ‘u’ that writers of British English include. Billions of people speak English, and there are almost as many pronunciations of it.

Rules for speaking and writing vary even within cultures, most notably by region. Do you eat a grinder, a sub, or a hero/gyro? Do you refer to a can of carbonated liquid as “soda” or “pop”? Is a household entertainment room a “family room,” “rec room,” or “den”? When leaving a restaurant, do you ask your server for a “check,” the “ticket,” or your “bill”? Language is constantly evolving and adding new words as societies create new ideas. In this age of technology, many cultures have adapted almost instantly to new nouns such as “e-mail” and “Internet,” and verbs such as “downloading,” “texting,” and “blogging.” These would have been considered nonsense words in the world just twenty-five years ago.