Organizations in Depth by Gabriel Yiannis;

Author:Gabriel, Yiannis;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1024091
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Limited
Published: 1999-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

WHAT IS CULTURE?

Norms and values

Culture, like many other core concepts of the human sciences (power, role, personality, intelligence, class), is notoriously difficult to define. In a widely cited book on culture, Krober and Kluckholn (1952) identified 164 distinct definitions of culture proposed by different anthropologists. One of the simplest ways to approach culture is to equate it with the norms and values of a society. Norms are specific standards of behaviour to which we generally adhere, while values are wider beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. Norms govern numerous aspects of our behaviour, often without our conscious knowledge. One group of social norms, for example, governs how close we physically approach people. Americans generally feel comfortable in the following buffer spaces: 0–18 inches for intimacy; 18–48 inches for talking with friends; 4–12 feet for talking with strangers; more than 12 feet for standing in public areas. Adults tend to keep more distance than children; men more distance than women. The differences, however, are more pronounced across different cultures. Cultures near the equator, for reasons unknown, prefer less social space; they also make much more physical contact.

Evidently, social norms do not only govern how close we stand to each other when we talk. They affect our drinking and eating, our leisure activities, our preferences as consumers, aspects of our sexual behaviour and so on. While norms may vary from one culture to the next, cultures seek to enforce their norms, with a greater or lesser degree of severity, through the use of negative and positive sanctions. A student who goes to a lecture dressed in tie and suit may attract sarcastic comments from other students, or may be excluded from their social activities or may be simply accepted as an eccentric. A person, however, who goes to a funeral wearing a funny hat is likely to cause a scandal, angry words or receive a request to leave.

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