Subject:
Sociology
Material Type:
Module
Level:
Community College / Lower Division
Provider:
Ohio Open Ed Collaborative
Tags:
  • Globalization
  • High Culture
  • Human Behavior
  • International Cultures
  • Nonmaterial Culture
  • Oss0212
  • Popular Culture
  • Sociology
  • Worldview
  • License:
    Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
    Language:
    English
    Media Formats:
    Text/HTML

    Explain the impact of culture on human behavior and worldview

    Overview

    OER Text Material

    Pop Culture, Subculture, and Cultural Change

    Chapter 3, subsection 3.3. Human behavior and worldview are impacted by culture and cultural changes. For example, people are influenced by both high culture and popular culture. Due to the integration of international trade and finance markets (globalization) people have adopted different cultures. Alongside the process of globalization is diffusion, or the spread of material and nonmaterial culture. While globalization refers to the integration of markets, diffusion relates to a similar process in the integration of international cultures.

    Supplementary Material (Videos and Reading)

    Cultural Effects on Behavior

    Chapter 7: Human Society. In this article, there is a subsection titled Cultural Effects on Human Behavior. It notes that human behavior is affected both by genetic inheritance and by experience. The ways in which people develop are shaped by social experience and circumstances. Each person is born into a social and cultural setting—family, community, social class, language, religion—and eventually develops many social connections. Every culture includes a somewhat different web of patterns and meanings: ways of earning a living, systems of trade and government, social roles, religions, traditions in clothing and foods and arts, expectations for behavior, attitudes toward other cultures, and beliefs and values about all of these activities.

    How Culture may Impact Behavior in the Classroom (Video) 

    In this video, the presenter gives examples of cultures or cultural differences that may affect behavior in a way that creates problems. For example, Hispanic children are not brought up to look at adults in the face so in the classroom if a non-Hispanic teacher is talking to a Hispanic student and the student does not maintain eye contact, it may be misconstrued as behavior disorders. In short, due to cultural difference, we behave in different ways.

    How Culture Drives Behaviours (Video)

    According to the presenter, your culture determines how you relate to people. He uses the Norwegian culture where one is not supposed to talk to a stranger as a starting point. Typically, a Norwegian will find it strange if you are a stranger and you initiate a conversation with them. Accordingly, we see the world through cultural glasses. The lens through which your brain sees the world, shapes your reality.