COMPONENTS OF CULTURE.

            The following elements of culture render essential contributions to human social life:

1. NORMS
     Norms are guidelines that we (people) are supposed to
follow.
     Norms are shared rules that specify what is right or
wrong and the appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
They indicate that people should or should not do in a
specific situation. They indicate the standards of propriety,
morality, legality and ethics of a society that are covered by
sanctions when violations are made. They also enable
people to anticipate how others will interpret and respond
to their words and actions.
 Example:
o     We are supposed to be sad and
depressed when a family member dies.
 
Among the social norms are:

1. Folkways
 These are everyday habits, customs, traditions, and
conventions people obey without giving much thought to
the matter.
 It does not have particular moral and ethical significance.
Just a general customary or habitual ways and patterns of
doing things.
 People who violate folkways are labeled slobs or eccentrics
but as a rule, they are
 Examples:
o Barrio folks eat with their bare hands and
walk along the streets barefooted. On the
other hand, city folks eat using spoon and
fork and walk wearing slippers or shoes.

1. Mores
 These are the norms people consider vital to their well-
being and most cherished values; they are special customs
with moral and ethical significance, which are strongly held
and emphasized.
 Mores, are coercive and compulsory due to their strong
moral and legal sanctions. They are society’s code of
ethics, moral commandments, and standards of morality.
There are two kinds of Mores

1. Positive Mores or duty or the “Thou shall behavior”

 “Duty” refers to the behavior, which must and ought
to be done because they are ethically and morally
good.
 Example:
o Giving assistance to the
poor and to the needy.
o Thou shall love God above
all.

2. Negative Mores or taboo or the “Thou shall not behavior”

  “Taboo” refers to societal prohibitions on certain
acts which must not be done because they are not
only illegal but unethical and immoral.
 Example:
o Prohibitions against incest,
cannibalism, and murder.

1. Laws
 These are formalized norms enacted by people vested with
legitimate authority. They are group expectations, which
have formal sanction by the state.
 Sanctions are socially imposed rewards and punishments
that compel people to obey the norms.
 Example:
o The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines;
o Republic Acts;
o Statutes;
o Batas Pambansa.
 

2. IDEAS, BELIEFS, VALUES

            IDEAS are non-material aspects of culture and embody man’s conception of physical,
social and cultural world.
Example: idea of a model community, idea of an educated person, idea of alternative marriage.
            BELIEFS refer to a person’s conviction about a certain idea; beliefs embodies people’s
perception of reality and includes the primitive ideas of the universe as well as the scientists’
empirical view of the world.
Example: belief in spirits, belief in gravity, belief in life after death
            VALUES are abstract concepts of what is important and worthwhile. They are the
general ideas that individuals share about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable and
undesirable.
            They provide the foundation that underlines the people’s entire way of life. The
sociologist robin M. Williams (1970) identified 15 American major value orientations, to wit: high
value upon achievement and success, activity and work, humanitarianism, efficiency and
practicality, progress, material comfort, equality, freedom, conformity, science and rationality,
nationalism and patriotism, democracy, individuality, and racial and ethnic group superiority.
 

3. MATERIAL CULTURE
 It refers to the concrete and tangible objects
produced and used by man to satisfy his varied
needs and wants. It ranges from prehistoric stone
tools and weapons to sophisticated and modern
spaceships and weapons of mass destruction.
 Example: Artifacts

4. SYMBOLS
 It refers to an object, gesture, sound, color or
design that represents something other than itself.
People in a society must agree on the meanings of
symbols if they have to be understood. Man’s ability
to develop culture and transmit it derives from the
human ability to manipulate symbols and to arrive
at mutually shared meanings of events. In this
regard, language – both oral and written – plays a
 significant role in the development and transmission
of culture.
 Example: Cross for Christianity; Dove for peace.