Lesson 1: The Nature and Elements of Culture

LESSON 1: THE NATURE AND ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
Culture
The word ‘culture’ comes from the Latin word ‘cultura’ which is related to cult or
worship. In its broadest sense, the term refers to the result of human interaction. This
means that culture comprises the beliefs, customs, arts, behaviour or way of life of a
particular society (Meriam Webster, 2020).
In addition, Ramirez (2006) define culture as a collective way of thinking, feeling,

doing, relating and thus of being. She said that the deepest layer of culture is a core of
life-values emerging from a world-view that is influenced by persons’ transactions with
their particular natural and social environments.
She also added that Culture more often than not is unconsciously more than
consciously lived among a people. The externalization of the worldview is the
institutions which are shared enduring patterns of behavior in response to life-needs.
Moreover, Venkatraman (2002) said that there are several ways on how to
express one’s culture and these are through painting, sculpting, audio, visual media,
drawing, music, festivals, costumes, fair, functions, cuisine, theatre, dance, cinema,
games, toys and even language.
Nature of Culture
1. Learned Behavior
Not all behavior is learned, but most of it is learned; combing one’s hair, standing
in line, telling jokes, criticizing the President and going to the movie, all constitute
behaviors that had to be learned.
Sometimes the terms conscious learning and unconscious learning are used to
distinguish the learning.
Some behavior is obvious. People can be seen going to football games, eating
with forks, or driving automobiles. Such behavior is called “overt” behavior. Other
behavior is less visible.
2. Culture is Abstract
Culture exists in the minds or habits of the members of society. Culture is the
shared ways of doing and thinking. There are degrees of visibility of cultural behavior,
ranging from the regularized activities of persons to their internal reasons for so doing.
In other words, we cannot see culture as, such we can only see human behavior.
This behavior occurs in regular, patterned fashion and it is called culture.
3. Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and Knowledge
There is a widespread error in the thinking of many people who tend to regard
the ideas, attitudes, and notions which they have as “their own”.
It is easy to overestimate the uniqueness of one’s own attitudes and ideas. When
there is an agreement with other people it is largely Unnoticed, but when there is a
disagreement or difference one is usually conscious of it.
Your differences, however, may also be cultural. For example, suppose you are a
Muslim and the other person is a Christian.
4. Culture also Includes Material Objects
Man’s behavior results in creating objects. Men were behaving when they made
these things. To make these objects required numerous and various skills which human
beings gradually built up through the ages. Man has invented something else and so on.
Occasionally one encounters the view that man does not really “make” steel or a
battleship. All these things first existed in a “state nature”. The man merely modified
their form, changed them from a state in which they were to the state in which he now
uses them. The chair was first a tree which man surely did not make. But the chair is’
more than trees and the jet airplane is more than iron ore and so forth.
5. Culture is Shared by the Members of Society
The patterns of learned behavior and the results of behavior are possessed not
by one or a few people, but usually by a large proportion. Thus, many millions of
persons share such behavior patterns as the use of automobiles or the English
language. Persons may share some part of a culture unequally.Sometimes the people
share different aspects of culture.
6. Culture is Super-Organic
Culture is sometimes called super organic. It implies that “culture” is somehow

superior to “nature”. The word super-organic is useful when it implies that what may be
quite a different phenomenon from a cultural point of view. For example, a tree means
different things to the botanist who studies it, the old woman who uses it for shade in the
late summer afternoon, the farmer who picks its fruit, the motorist who collides with it
and the young lovers who carve their initials in its trunk. The same physical objects and
physical characteristics, in other words, may constitute a variety of quite different
cultural objects and cultural characteristics.
7. Culture is Pervasive
Culture is pervasive it touches every aspect of life. The pervasiveness of culture

is manifest in two ways.
First, culture provides an unquestioned context within which individual action and
response take place. Not only emotional action but relational actions are governed by
cultural norms. Second, culture pervades social activities and institutions.
8. Culture is a Way of Life
Culture means simply the “way of life” of a people or their “design for a living.”
Kluckhohn and Kelly define it in his sense”, A culture is a historically derived system of
explicit and implicit designs for living, which tends to be shared by all or specially
designed members of a group”.
Explicit culture refers to similarities in word and action which can be directly
observed. For example, adolescent cultural behavior can be generalized from
regularities in dress, mannerism, and conversation. Implicit culture exists in abstract
forms which are not quite obvious.
9. Culture is Idealistic
Culture embodies the ideals and norms of a group. It is sum-total of the ideal
patterns and norms of behavior of a group. Culture consists of the intellectual, artistic
and social ideals and institutions which the members of the society profess and to which
they strive to confirm.
10. Culture is Transmitted among Members of Society
The cultural ways are learned by persons from persons. Many of them are
“handed down” by one’s elders, by parents, teachers, and others. Other cultural
behaviors are “handed up” to elders. Some of the transmission of culture is among
contemporaries.
For example, the styles of dress, political views, and the use of recent labor-
saving devices. One does not acquire a behavior pattern spontaneously. He learns it.
That means that someone teaches him and he learns. Much of the learning process
both for the teacher and the learner is quite unconscious, unintentional, or accidental.
11. Culture is Continually Changing
There is one fundamental and inescapable attribute (special quality) of culture,

the fact of unending change. Some societies sometimes change slowly, and hence in
comparison to other societies seem not to be changing at all. But they are changing,
even though not obviously so.
12. Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture
Man lives not only in the present but also in the past and future. He is able to do
this because he possesses language which transmits to him what was learned in the
past and enables him to transmit the accumulated wisdom to the next generation.
A specialized language pattern serves as a common bond to the members of a
particular group or subculture. Although culture is transmitted in a variety of ways,
language is one of the most important vehicles for perpetuating cultural patterns.
13. Culture is Integrated
This is known as holism, or the various parts of a culture being interconnected.

All aspects of a culture are related to one another and to truly understand a culture, one
must learn about all of its parts, not only a few.
14. Culture is Dynamic
This simply means that cultures interact and change. Because most cultures are
in contact with other cultures, they exchange ideas and symbols. All cultures change,
otherwise, they would have problems adapting to changing environments. And because
cultures are integrated, if one component in the system changes, it is likely that the
entire system must adjust.
15. Culture is Transmissive
Culture is transmissive as it is transmitted front one generation to another.

Language is the main vehicle of culture. Language in different forms makes it possible
for the present generation to understand the achievement of earlier generations.
Transmission of culture may take place by imitation as well as by instruction.
16. Culture Varies from Society to Society

Every society has a culture of its own. It differs from society to society. The
culture of every society is unique to itself. Cultures are not uniform.
Cultural elements like customs, traditions, morals, values, beliefs are not uniform
everywhere. Culture varies from time to time also.
17. Culture is Gratifying
Culture provides proper opportunities for the satisfaction of our needs and
desires. Our needs both biological and social are fulfilled in cultural ways. Culture
determines and guides various activities of man. Thus, culture is defined as the process
through which human beings satisfy their wants.
So we can easily say that culture has various features which embodied it in an
important position in organizations and other aspects too.

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LESSON 1: THE NATURE AND ELEMENTS OF CULTURE

In addition, Ramirez (2006) define culture as a collective way of thinking, feeling,

3. Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and Knowledge

4. Culture also Includes Material Objects

5. Culture is Shared by the Members of Society

Culture is sometimes called super organic. It implies that “culture” is somehow

Culture is pervasive it touches every aspect of life. The pervasiveness of culture

8. Culture is a Way of Life

10. Culture is Transmitted among Members of Society

11. Culture is Continually Changing

There is one fundamental and inescapable attribute (special quality) of culture,

12. Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture

13. Culture is Integrated

This is known as holism, or the various parts of a culture being interconnected.

14. Culture is Dynamic

15. Culture is Transmissive

Culture is transmissive as it is transmitted front one generation to another.

16. Culture Varies from Society to Society

17. Culture is Gratifying

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