Culture and Cultural Norms

Culture

100

Define 'Culture'

A set of unique attitudes, behaviors, rules, customs and symbols shared by a large group of people and usually communicated from one generation to the next. Culture is dynamic; it changes over time in response to environmental and social changes. The term 'culture' does not necessarily equate to 'country'.

200

State the two types of 'culture' and who identified the two types of culture.

Triandis. Objective and Subjective culture.

300

What is objective culture? What is subjective culture? Give at least one example for each.

Objective culture = visible characteristics e.g. dress styles, cuisine. Subjective culture = not visible, involves beliefs, norms and values that a group deems important enough to be passed onto future generations e.g. moral codes, religious beliefs, social etiquette.

Cultural Norms

100

Define norms.

A standard or pattern, especially of social behavior, that is typical or expected of a group.

200

Define cultural norms and give a possible example.

The norms of an established cultural group, which are transmitted through generations and regulate behavior in accordance to what is perceived by the group as accepted behavior (thinking, feeling and behaving) e.g. conformity in certain cultures may be more of a cultural norm than to other cultures.

Study

100

Name the researcher of one relevant study that supports the existence of differences between cultural norms of different cultures.

Stanley Milgram

200

Name the two countries studied in his study and the cultures they represent.

Norway (collectivist culture/society) and France (individualistic culture/society).

300

Which type of experimental design was used and describe the procedure of the study.

The matched pairs design was used (both groups were chosen from volunteers to have similar background factors e.g. age, educational level, social class). Milgram used a modification of the Asch situation. Participants believed that they were judging length of musical tones with 5 other participants over a microphone system but in fact the other participant's voices are actually from a taped recording and only the participant and an experimenter are present. The amount of times participants conformed to the group judgments was recorded.

400

State the general results of the study and the conclusions made.

Overall, Norwegians conformed more than French people to group judgments (62% vs. 50% of the time). When participants were belittled by the other 'participants', the Norwegians generally kept quiet and took the criticism but over half of the French people talked back when criticized. It was concluded that the results were due to the 'highly cohesive'/collectivist/conformist nature of Norwegian society compared to the more individualistic/non-conformist nature of French society. In other words, conformity was more of a cultural norm in Norwegian society and therefore has guided the behavior of the Norwegian participants.