Elements of Culture

Culture is the totality of learned and socially transmitted behaviors. It is shared and practicing in
all societies of the world. Basic Elements of culture includes ideas, beliefs, values, customs which make it
a whole configuration. Culture is transmitted from one generation to another. Each culture has
some basic elements.

Basic Elements of Culture

There are some basic Cultural Elements given below:

• Language
• Symbols
• Norms
• Values
• Beliefs
• Cognitive Elements

1. Language

A group of words or ideas having common meaning and is shared to a social situation is called language.
Language is the entrance to a culture. Language is a set of socially sound pattern, words, and sentences
having specific meaning and terminology common to the same culture. you can learn effects of
ethnocentrism.

Language is a source of communication and to transmit message from one person to another. It is the
method to mold the behavior and experience of a person. Language differs from culture to culture and
is transmitted from one generation to another.

Language is like a vehicle through which we can carry out our complex social activities. Language is the
foundation of a culture and ticket to the entrance of a social life. Animal have not culture because they
have no specific language to transmit worlds to others. So, language is the key to open a social life of an
individual with some special characteristics.
 2. Symbols

Culture is a system of symbols. Symbols are anything used to represent express and stand for an event
situation. Symbols direct to guide our behavior. It is used to show an event of past, present or future.
For example, the heap of ash shows that the something has been burnt or the wet street shows that it
has rained.

Bowing head, whistling, winkling of eyes situation, all are the symbols, which express a specific object
idea about other. BaithUllah is the symbol of God and we pray to it. American Shake their hand to
answer for No. Other examples are flag, anthem, picture, statues are symbols. Symbols are the short
expression for the identification of an object or situation.

3. Norms

Norms as elements of culture are the rules and the guidelines which specify the behavior of an
individual. Norms keep a person within the boundary of society and its culture. It gives us restriction
about something which to do and which not to do. It molds our behavior and gives as knowledge about
wrong and right. Norms can be divided into:

• Folkways. Folkways are the simple customary ways of the people. It is the normal
and habitual action of people within a culture. Folkways are the recognized or
accepted ways of behavior. These are the behavior pattern which a person uses
generally in his daily life.
• Mores. Mores is a Latin word and the plural of most which means customs or beliefs
accordance with a group customary expectation. It is the “must” behavior of a
person. Mores refers to “what ought to be and what ought not to be.” Mores are
serious norms but are informed like folkways. They have a serious binding on a
group the violation of mores threats to social order. Punishment may be both
formal and informal for the violation of mores.

4. Values

Anything getting importance in our daily life becomes our values. The origin of values is not biological
but it is social production while living in society the values develop. Values depend upon the culture.
Culture varies from society to society and thus values are different in every social situation. Values are
what we like and what we say will in our society values are the good idea and thinking of a person.

Some values are hereditary which we gain from our elders, books and parents. The culture is full of
values and can transmit from one generation to another. When a natural object gets a meaning, it
becomes a value.
 5. Beliefs

Every sect within a culture having some beliefs for cultural refuge. These beliefs are responsible for the
spiritual fulfillment of needs and wants. Muslims believe in God, Holly Prophet, The Day of Judgment,
recitation of Holly Quran, Hajj etc.

Sikh wear bangle in one hand, bear a long beard, keeping a dagger. Cross for Christians and a necklace
or a cotton thread around nick, the water of ganga and are sacred for Hindus.

6. Cognitive Elements

Cognitive elements of culture are those though which an individual know how to cope with an existing
social situation. How to survive, how make shelter from storms and other natural calamities, how to
travel and transport etc. are the practical knowledge which make a culture. Such knowledge is carefully
thought to every generation.
 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Organizational culture is defined as the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting
that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.

Every company has its unique personality, just like people do. The unique personality of an organization
is referred to as its culture.

In groups of people who work together, organizational culture is an invisible but powerful force that
influences the behavior of the members of that group.

There seems to be wide agreement that organizational culture refers to a shared meaning shared by
members that distinguish the organization from other organizations.

It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written and unwritten rules that have been
developed over time and are considered valid.

These shared values strongly influence the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act,
and perform their jobs.

Every organization develops and maintains a unique culture, which provides guidelines and boundaries
for the behavior of the members of the organization.

Organizational culture/corporate culture includes-

• The ways the organization conducts its business, treats its employees, customers, and the wider
community,
• The extent to which freedom is allowed in decision making, developing new ideas, and personal
expression,
• How power and information flow through its hierarchy, and
• How committed employees are towards collective objectives.

Characteristics of Organizational Culture

As individuals come into contact with organizations, they come into contact with dress norms, stories
people tell about what goes on, the organization’s formal rules and procedures, its formal codes of
behavior, rituals, tasks, pay systems, jargon, and jokes only understood by insiders and so on.

Characteristics of organizational culture are;

• Innovation (Risk Orientation).

• Attention to Detail (Precision Orientation).
• Emphasis on Outcome (Achievement Orientation).
• Emphasis on People (Fairness Orientation).
• Teamwork (Collaboration Orientation).
 • Aggressiveness (Competitive Orientation).
• Stability (Rule Orientation).

Roles of Organizational Culture

Some organizations that developed a strong corporate culture increased their goodwill and got a good
position in the market.

The various roles of organizational culture are given below:

• Culture unites (brings together) employees by providing a sense of identity with the
organization.
• An informal control mechanism.
• Facilitation of open communication.
• Culture enables organizations to differentiate themselves from one another.
• Culture often generates commitment, superseding personal interests.
• Culture sets organization norms, rules, and standards. Thereby, culture enables employees to
function in an organization, by teaching them how to behave.
• A shared understanding.
• Culture becomes especially important in a program/project-based organization. In such an
organization, the hierarchy is flat and decision-making is moved to the project/program purpose
units and departments. In this context, culture provides the guiding light towards the
achievement of goals and objectives.
• Enhanced mutual trust and cooperation.
• Fewer disagreements and more efficient decision-making processes.
• A strong sense of identification.
• Assisting employees in making sense of their behaviors by providing justification for behaviors.

Types of Organization Culture

The practices, principles, policies, and values of an organization form its culture.

The culture of an organization decides the way employees behave amongst themselves and the people
outside the organization.

Let us understand the various types of organizational culture:

• Normative culture,
• Pragmatic culture,
• Academy Culture,
• Baseball Team Culture,
• Club Culture,
• Fortress Culture,
• Tough Guy Culture,
• Bet your Company culture,
• Process Culture,
• Power Culture,
• Role Culture,
• Task Culture,
• Person Culture.
 Cultural Relativism
Cultural relativism refers to the idea that the values, knowledge, and behavior of people must be
understood within their own cultural context. This is one of the most fundamental concepts in sociology,
as it recognizes and affirms the connections between the greater social structure and trends and the
everyday lives of individual people.

Origins and Overview

The concept of cultural relativism as we know and use it today was established as an analytic tool by
German-American anthropologist Franz Boas in the early 20th century. In the context of early social
science, cultural relativism became an important tool for pushing back on the ethnocentrism that often-
tarnished research at that time, which was mostly conducted by white, wealthy, Western men, and
often focused on people of color, foreign indigenous populations, and persons of lower economic class
than the researcher.

Why Recognizing Cultural Relativism Matters

By acknowledging cultural relativism, we can recognize that our culture shapes what we consider to be
beautiful, ugly, appealing, disgusting, virtuous, funny, and abhorrent. It shapes what we consider to be
good and bad art, music, and film, as well as what we consider to be tasteful or tacky consumer goods.
The work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu features ample discussion of these phenomena, and the
consequences of them. This varies not just in terms of national cultures but within a large society like
the U.S. and also by cultures and subcultures organized by class, race, sexuality, region, religion, and
ethnicity, among others.
 Sub-Culture
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to
which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own
norms and values regarding cultural, political, and sexual matters. Subcultures are part of society while
keeping their specific characteristics intact. Examples of subcultures include hippies, goths, bikers,
and skinheads.

Subcultural theory was first developed by sociology scholars at the Chicago School in the 1920s. The
Chicago School explored the existence of deviant behavior and discussed deviance as a product of social
problems within society. The Birmingham School added to subcultural theory, investigating the ways in
which individuals joined groups that participated in collective forms of deviance, referred to as
subcultures. For contemporary theorists, the concept itself is controversial, and some align with a “post-
subculture” perspective suggesting subculture no longer describes the collective activities. Sociologists
continue to study subcultures in order to uncover why subcultures form, why sub culturists choose to
engage in deviant group behavior, and what subcultural activity can tell us about society as a whole.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SUBCULTURES

It is important to note that there is no one agreed upon definition of a subculture by sociologists.
Subcultural theorists continue to expand and alter the definition of subcultures, as they investigate
more subcultural groups and incorporate sociological theories of deviance into the subcultural
framework. Thus, the definition of subculture is contentious. Some theorists (see “post-subcultural
thought” below) even believe the concept has outlived its usefulness. However, a working definition is
necessary for an introductory understanding of subcultures and subcultural theory. Thus, the
characteristics of subcultures outlined below incorporate concepts and theories from the most
prominent subcultural scholars, but by no means constitute a definitive “checklist” for determining what
“counts” as a subculture and what does not.

Diffuse Networks

Subcultures do not consist of formal leadership, formal membership, or any explicit

organizational structure. Rather, subcultures have loose and informal participation, as the boundaries of
who and what embodies a subculture are contested and fluid. Membership is not exclusive sub
culturists can identify as part of the subculture and simultaneously interact with people in other cultural
and social networks. Consequently, the boundaries between mainstream culture and subculture are
often indistinguishable, as the two cultural domains can share ideas and coexist in the lives of
individuals.
 Shared Distinct Meanings

Sub culturists not only share an identity, they also share values, practices, and cultural objects. For
example, straight edgers value their community and their interpersonal relationships, they practice
clean-living (substance-free), and they purchase objects of importance such as the most-popular
hardcore punk albums. As subcultures emerge, distinct meanings form to define the scene’s unique
practices and cultural objects as well as to distinguish the subculture from mainstream culture.
These meanings continuously grow and change as sub culturists debate existing meanings and create
new ones. Additionally, meanings are both created and learned through social interaction. The values
and expected behaviors of subcultures often deviate in some way from the generally accepted norms of
society.

Shared Identity

Many ethnographers argue that a collective form of self-identification is perhaps the most important
distinguisher between a subculture and a simple social group. Outsiders often perceive the intense
degree to which sub culturists engage with and partake in their subculture as obsessive or unhealthy.
However, the degree to which sub culturists engage with their group can in fact be seen as a natural
result of a distinctive sense of self in relation to their subculture. Indeed, a woman who has a child is not
stigmatized for spending the majority of her day parenting the child, as motherhood is seen to be an
important part of her identity

However, unlike motherhood, an important part of subcultural identity is the collective aspect that sub
culturists find so unifying. As Turner, Hoggs, Oakes, Reicher, and Wetherell suggest, the formation of a
collective identity involves “a shift towards the perception of self as an interchangeable exemplar of
some social category and away from the perception of self as a unique person.” Sub culturists report
feeling an innate sense of connection to and relationship with other members of their subculture, and
do not necessarily require personal relationships among group members to feel said connection As such,
it is important to distinguish between social groups that develop from common bonds (attachment to
other group members) and subcultures comprised of people that share a strong common identity.

Resistance

Resistance, either passive or active, to dominant hegemonic cultural values often accompanies
subcultural participation in one form or another. Williams (2009) suggests that there exist three
dimensions that comprise subcultural resistance. First, resistance may either be passive or active, based
on participants’ intention to resist. The CCCS, for example, viewed sub culturists as passive consumers.
Second, resistance may exist at the micro or macro level, depending on what or for whom the resistance
is directed. At the micro level, resistance may be developed as a psychological defense mechanism
against bullies and peers, whereas macro level resistance is usually directed at politicians or policy
makers, such as Christian Abstinence Youth Groups calling for a ban on birth control. Finally, resistance
can be overt or covert, depending on if the actions of sub culturists are interpreted by others as
resistant. Whereas covert resistance is that which is intentional yet unnoticed by others, overt
resistance is much harder to miss, as it, by definition, drives people to take notice. For example, when
a Brony wears a colorful “I’m A Brony, Deal with It” t-shirt, he will more often than not succeed in
bringing attention to his subculture.

Post-Subcultural Thought

Post-subcultural theorists suggest that subcultures either no longer exist or are simply little different
from mainstream culture. They emphasize that mass consumption, diffusion of cultures through
globalization, and the overall interconnectedness of people, places, and products across the world
transform the ways subcultures manifest in the identities of individuals. Consumerism influences
subcultural communities by making subcultural products such as CDs and outfits available for anyone to
buy; the community-based scenes are transformed into product lines. It becomes harder to differentiate
between what constitutes a niche subcultural scene and what constitutes mainstream culture, as
subcultural objects undergo commodification and commercialization.

Furthermore, in an increasingly interconnected world, people have more freedom to pick and choose
what subcultural identity they want to embody, whether that be through their style, mannerisms, or
music taste. This freedom means that subcultural identities and participation are fluid rather than
stable; in other words, there is less commitment to a particular scene. Whereas other subcultural
scholarship emphasizes how one’s background influences whether they join a particular subcultural
scene, post-subcultural thought recognizes that globalization and diffusion of cultures allows for people
of many backgrounds to pick and choose the scene(s) they want to participate in.
 Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the practice where we tend to believe that our own culture, ethnic group, race, etc. are
superior to others. Such a belief develops out of socialization, which provides us the knowledge of the
existence of different cultures, and that of our own, what these cultures entail, what is normal, what is
different, what is right or what is wrong. Ethnocentrism is often a judgment that we make based on our
own culture, we tend to believe that what we practice in our own culture is right, as opposed to the
practices of the other cultures, it is a kind of cultural relativism where we are comparing our own culture
to the other while at the same time keeping the focus on our own culture. We all learn ethnocentrism
while growing up, as the practices of our own culture are normalized to us, we automatically tend to
start assuming any practice that is not a part of our culture is not normal.

Effect of Ethnocentrism on society and individuals

Ethnocentrism can affect individuals and societies either in positive or negative way. If we take
ethnocentrism in a positive way, someone may have extraordinary faith in any individual, cultural,
country or ethnic group. On the other hand a person can feel and consider himself and his cultural
values etc. superior than other individuals, cultures and societies

Ethnocentrism Examples

For example, when we in Pakistan say that Hindu culture or Western culture is not good, we pass such a
judgement, keeping our own cultural and social standards in our minds. This is a historical fact that
everywhere man has displayed his own interests, value system, cultural patterns and normative order as
right, normal, and superior to others. Such beliefs and value system stratified the populations into many
different categories, where assimilation of different cultures becomes difficult resulting in different
treatment for various sections of population.

Another example of ethnocentrism, in Pakistan women mostly observe “pardah”, thus we have been
conditioned with this pattern of culture and surely a free woman of Western society would not be
regarded as good and modest woman according to our measuring rod. Thus, we contempt the Western
culture, because through our socialization in Pakistani society we begin to regard it the best available
culture in the world. In the same way, people judge other religions from the point of view of their own
religious values. This type of attitude is called ethnocentrism.