CHARACTERISTICS OF

CULTURE
1. CULTURE IS LEARNED

 The first essential characteristic of culture is that it is learned.

A child born in the Philippines but was brought to the United
States after birth may not develop traits characteristics of
Filipinos. He may learn behavior pattern characteristics of
American children, including language.
2. CULTURE IS SHARED BY A
GROUP OF PEOPLE

 For a thought or action to be considered cultural, it

must be commonly shared by some population or
group of individuals. Even if some behavior is not
commonly appropriate, it is cultural if most people
think it is appropriate. For example, the idea that
marriage involves only one man and one woman is
cultural in our society.
3. CULTURE IS CUMULATIVE

 Knowledge is stored and passed on from one

generation to the next, and new knowledge is being
added to what is existing. Each culture has worked
out solutions to the basic problems of life, which it
then passes on to its children. The jeepneys and
tricycles in the Philippines are good examples of
the cumulative quality of culture. Their invention
involved the use of materials which were invented
in different places of the world (Hunt et al, 1995).
4. CULTURES CHANGE

 All cultural knowledge does not perpetually

accumulate. At the same time that new cultural traits
are added, some old ones are lost because they are
no longer useful. For example, most city dwellers
today do not have or need the skills required for
survival in a wilderness. Most would likely starve to
death because they do not know how to acquire wild
foods and survive the extremes of weather
outdoors. What is more important in modern urban
life are such things as the ability to drive a car, use a
computer, and understand how to obtain food in a
supermarket or restaurant (O’Neill,2005).
5. CULTURE IS DYNAMIC
 This is a characteristic of culture that stems from its
cumulative quality. No culture is ever in a
permanent state. It is constantly changing because
new ideas and new techniques are added and old
ways are constantly modified and discarded. This is
because of the rapid changes that occur which may
be introduced from within or without. It also grows
by the spread of traits from individual and from one
group to another which is termed as diffusion. One
form of diffusion is the growth of language. Filipino
vocabulary has grown because of borrowed words
from other languages like Spanish, Chinese and
English.
CULTURE IS IDEATIONAL
 Cultureis an ideal pattern of behavior
which the members are expected to
follow. Man assigns meanings to his
environment and experiences by
symbolizing them. These are internalized
by the individual and sees or approaches
his world from the standpoint of this
culture (Panopio, 1994).
7. CULTURE IS DIVERSE
 The sum total of human culture consists
of a great many separate cultures, each
of them different. Culture as a whole, is a
system with many mutually independent
parts. For example, the choice of a
marriage partner involves many different
parts of culture as religion, economic
class, education, etc.
8. CULTURE GIVES US A RANGE OF
PERMISSIBLE BEHAVIOR PATTERNS
 Every culture allows a range of ways in which men can be
men and women can be women. Culture also tells us how
different activities should be conducted, such as how one
should act as a husband, wife, parent, child, etc. these
rules of permissible behavior are usually flexible to a
degree- the are some alternatives rather than the hard
rules. For instance, culture tells us how we should dress
based on our gender, but it allows us to dress in different
ways in different situations in order to communicate
varied messages and statuses. The clothing patterns of
women in this society can be particularly rich and
complex. Their clothing can be intentionally business-
like, recreational, as well as sexually attractive,
ambiguous, neutral, or even
repulsive(http://anthro.Palomar.edu/culture/_htm).
PRESENTED BY:

MARY GRACE
DACAYANAN

OMSC Sablayan