What is Culture?

The word culture has many different meanings. For

some it refers to an appreciation of good literature, music,
art, and food. For a biologist, it is likely to be a colony of
bacteria or other microorganisms growing in a nutrient
medium in a laboratory Petri dish. However, for
anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is
the full range of learned human behavior patterns. The
term was first used in this way by the pioneer English
Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Edward B. Tylor
(1832-1917)
Culture, published in 1871. Tylor said that culture is "that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of
society." Of course, it is not limited to men. Women possess and create it as
well. Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus
of anthropology.

Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a fragile phenomenon. It

is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our
written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made things are
merely the products of culture. They are not culture in themselves. For this
reason, archaeologists can not dig up culture directly in their excavations.
The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are
only material remains that reflect cultural patterns--they are things that were
made and used through cultural knowledge and skills.

Layers of Culture
There are very likely three layers or levels of culture that are part of your
learned behavior patterns and perceptions. Most obviously is the body of
cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society. When people speak of
Italian, Samoan, or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared
language, traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from
others. In most cases, those who share your culture do so because they
acquired it as they were raised by parents and other family members who
have it.

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The second layer of culture that may be part of
your identity is a subculture . In complex,
diverse societies in which people have come
from many different parts of the world, they
often retain much of their original cultural
traditions. As a result, they are likely to be part
of an identifiable subculture in their new
society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures set them apart from the rest
of their society. Examples of easily identifiable subcultures in the United
States include ethnic groups such as Vietnamese Americans, African
Americans, and Mexican Americans. Members of each of these subcultures
share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural
traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience. As
the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant
national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist
except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry. That is generally
the case with German Americans and Irish Americans in the United States
today. Most of them identify themselves as Americans first. They also see
themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.

These Cuban American

women in Miami, Florida
have a shared subculture
identity that is reinforced
through their language,
food, and other traditions

The third layer of culture consists of cultural universals. These are learned
behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter
where people live in the world, they share these universal traits. Examples of
such "human cultural" traits include:

1. communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited set

of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences
2. using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior
citizen, woman, man)
3. classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships
and having kinship terms to refer to
them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)
4. raising children in some sort of family setting
5. having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus

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 women's work)
6. having a concept of privacy
7. having rules to regulate sexual behavior
8. distinguishing between good and bad behavior
9. having some sort of body ornamentation
10. making jokes and playing games
11. having art
12. having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of
community decisions

While all cultures have these and possibly many other universal traits,
different cultures have developed their own specific ways of carrying out or
expressing them. For instance, people in deaf subcultures frequently use
their hands to communicate with sign language instead of verbal language.
However, sign languages have grammatical rules just as verbal ones do.

Culture and Society

Culture and society are not the same thing. While cultures are
complexes of learned behavior patterns and perceptions, societies are
groups of interacting organisms. People are not the only animals that have
societies. Schools of fish, flocks of birds, and hives of bees are societies. In
the case of humans, however, societies are groups of people who directly or
indirectly interact with each other. People in human societies also generally
perceive that their society is distinct from other societies in terms of shared
traditions and expectations.

While human societies and cultures are not the same thing, they are
inextricably connected because culture is created and transmitted to others in
a society. Cultures are not the product of lone individuals. They are the
continuously evolving products of people interacting with each other. Cultural
patterns such as language and politics make no sense except in terms of the
interaction of people. If you were the only human on earth, there would be no
need for language or government.

Is Culture Limited to
Humans?

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There is a difference of opinion in the Non-human culture?
behavioral sciences about whether or This orangutan mother is
not we are the only animal that using a specially prepared
stick to "fish out" food from
creates and uses culture. The a crevice. She learned this
answer to this question depends on skill and is now teaching it
how narrow culture is defined. If it is to her child who is hanging
on her shoulder and intently
used broadly to refer to a complex of watching.
learned behavior patterns, then it is
clear that we are not alone in creating and using culture. Many other animal
species teach their young what they themselves learned in order to survive.
This is especially true of the chimpanzees and other relatively intelligent apes
and monkeys. Wild chimpanzee mothers typically teach their children about
several hundred food and medicinal plants. Their children also have to learn
about the dominance hierarchy and the social rules within their communities.
As males become teenagers, they acquire hunting skills from adults. Females
have to learn how to nurse and care for their babies. Chimpanzees even
have to learn such basic skills as how to perform sexual intercourse. This
knowledge is not hardwired into their brains at birth. They are all learned
patterns of behavior just as they are for humans.

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 Characteristics of Culture
In order to better understand culture, it is useful to closely examine its
characteristics and their ramifications. In this section of the tutorial, you will
learn about the specific advantages that culture gives our species. You will
also learn about culture's limitations and shortcomings.

Culture Is An Adaptive Mechanism

The first humans evolved in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa about
2.5 million years ago. Since then, we have successfully occupied all of the
major geographic regions of the world, but our bodies have remained
essentially those of warm climate animals. We cannot survive outside of the
warmer regions of our planet without our cultural knowledge and technology.
What made it possible for our ancestors to begin living in temperate and
ultimately subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere after half a million
years ago was the invention of efficient hunting skills, fire use, and, ultimately,
clothing, warm housing, agriculture, and commerce. Culture has been a
highly successful adaptive mechanism for our species. It has given us a
major selective advantage in the competition for survival with other life forms.
Culture has allowed the global human population to grow from less than 10
million people shortly after the end of the last ice age to more than 6.5 billion
people today, a mere 10,000 years later. Culture has made us the most
dangerous and the most destructive large animal on our planet. It is ironic
that despite the power that culture has given us, we are totally dependent on it
for survival. We need our cultural skills to stay alive.

Expanding human geographic range into new environmental zones

made possible by the evolution of culture (The ranges during later
time periods include those of earlier periods)

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Over the last several hundred thousand years, we
have developed new survival related cultural skills
and technologies at a faster rate than natural
selection could alter our bodies to adapt to the
environmental challenges that confronted us. The
fact that cultural evolution can occur faster than
biological evolution has significantly modified the
effect of natural selection on humans. One Successful cultural technology
for adapting to very cold winter
consequence of this has been that we have not environments
developed thick fat layers and dense fur coats like
polar bears in the cold regions because our culture provided the necessary
warmth during winter times.

Culture is learned
Human infants come into the world with basic drives such as hunger and
thirst, but they do not possess instinctive patterns of behavior to satisfy them.
Likewise, they are without any cultural knowledge. However, they are
genetically predisposed to rapidly learn language and other cultural traits.
New born humans are amazing learning machines. Any normal baby can be
placed into any family on earth and grow up to learn their culture and accept it
as his or her own. Since culture is non-instinctive, we are not genetically
programmed to learn a particular one.

Every human generation potentially can discover new

things and invent better technologies. The new cultural
skills and knowledge are added onto what was learned in
previous generations. As a result, culture is
cumulative. Due to this cumulative effect, most high
school students today are now familiar with mathematical
insights and solutions that ancient Greeks such as North American children
informally learning the
Archimedes and Pythagoras struggled their lives to culture of their parents
discover.

Cultural evolution is due to the cumulative effect of culture. We now

understand that the time between major cultural inventions has become
steadily shorter, especially since the invention of agriculture 8,000-10,000
years ago. The progressively larger human population after that time was
very likely both a consequence and a cause of accelerating culture growth.
The more people there are, the more likely new ideas and information will
accumulate. If those ideas result in a larger, more secure food supplies, the
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population will inevitably grow. In a sense, culture has been the human
solution to surviving changing environments, but it has continuously
compounded the problem by making it possible for more humans to stay
alive. In other words, human cultural evolution can be seen as solving a
problem that causes the same problem again and again. The ultimate cost of
success of cultural technology has been a need to produce more and more
food for more and more people.

Parallel Growth of the Human Population and Cultural Technology

The invention of agriculture made it possible for our ancestors to have a more
controllable and, subsequently, dependable food supply. It also resulted in
settling down in permanent communities. This in turn set the stage for further
developments in technology and political organization. The inevitable result
was more intensive agriculture, new kinds of social and political systems
dominated by emerging elite classes, the first cities, and ultimately the
industrial and information revolutions of modern times. City life brought with it
the unexpected consequence of increased rates of contagious diseases.
Large, dense populations of people make it much easier for viruses, bacteria,
and other disease causing microorganisms to spread from host to host. As a
result, most cities in the past were periodically devastated by epidemics.

Agriculture based ancient city Modern post-industrial city

(Thebes, Egypt) (New York)

The rate of cultural evolution for many human societies during the last two
centuries has been unprecedented. Today, major new technologies are
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invented every few years rather than once or twice a century or even less
often, as was the case in the past. Likewise, there has been an astounding
increase in the global human population. It is worth reflecting on the fact that
there are people alive today who were born before cell phones, computers,
televisions, radios, antibiotics, and even airplanes. These now elderly
individuals have seen the human population double several times. The world
that was familiar to them in their childhood is no longer here. It is as if they
have moved to a new alien culture and society. Not surprisingly, they often
have difficulty in accepting and adjusting to the change. The psychological
distress and confusion that accompanies this has been referred to as future
shock.

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 very likely starve to death
because they do not know how to acquire wild foods
Tool of modern technology
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.

The regular addition and subtraction of cultural traits results in culture

change. All cultures change over time--none is static. However, the rate of
change and the aspects of culture that change varies from society to society.
For instance, people in Germany today generally seem eager to adopt new
words from other languages, especially from American English, while many
French people are resistant to it because of the threat of "corrupting" their own
language. However, the French are just as eager as the Germans to adopt
new technology.

8
Change can occur as a result of both invention within
a society as well as the diffusion of cultural traits
from one society to another. Predicting whether a
society will adopt new cultural traits or abandon others
is complicated by the fact that the various aspects of
a culture are closely interwoven into a complex
pattern. Changing one trait will have an impact on North American woman in a
other traits because they are functionally job that formerly would not
interconnected. As a result, there commonly is a have been open to women
resistance to major changes. For example, many men in North America and
Europe resisted the increase in economic and political opportunities for
women over the last century because of the far ranging consequences. It
inevitably changed the nature of marriage, the family, and the lives of all men.
It also significantly altered the workplace as well as the legal system and the
decisions made by governments.

People Usually are not Aware of Their Culture

The way that we interact and do things in our everyday lives seems "natural"
to us. We are unaware of our culture because we are so close to it and know
it so well. For most people, it is as if their learned behavior was biologically
inherited. It is usually only when they come into contact with people from
another culture that they become aware that their patterns of behavior are not
universal.

The common response in all societies to other cultures is to judge them in

terms of the values and customs of their own familiar culture. This
is ethnocentrism . Being fond of your own way of life and condescending
or even hostile toward other cultures is normal for all people. Alien culture
traits are often viewed as being not just different but inferior, less sensible,
and even "unnatural." For example, European cultures strongly condemn
other societies that practice polygamy and the eating of dogs--behavior that
Europeans generally consider to be immoral and offensive. Likewise, many
people in conservative Muslim societies, such as Afghanistan and Saudi
Arabia, consider European women highly immodest and immoral for going out
in public without being chaperoned by a male relative and without their bodies
covered from head to toe so as to prevent men from looking at them.
Ethnocentrism is not characteristic only of complex modern societies. People
in small, relatively isolated societies are also ethnocentric in their views about
outsiders.

9
 Our ethnocentrism causes us to be shocked and
even disgusted at attitudes about other animals in
different cultures. This North American woman
considers her dog to be a close friend and essentially
a member of her own family. In the Muslim world,
dogs are generally considered to be dirty animals that
are likely to be kicked if they get in the way. In some
areas of Southeast Asia, dogs have multiple functions,
including being a source of food for people.

Our ethnocentrism can prevent us from understanding and appreciating

another culture. When anthropologists study other societies, they need to
suspend their own ethnocentric judgments and adopt a cultural relativity
approach. That is, they try to learn about and interpret the various aspects of
the culture they are studying in reference to that culture rather than to the
anthropologist's own culture. This provides an understanding of how such
practices as polygamy can function and even support other cultural traditions.
Without taking a cultural relativity approach, it would otherwise be difficult, for
example, to comprehend why women among the Masai cattle herding
people of Kenya might prefer to be one of several co-wives rather than have
a monogamous marriage.

Masai women

Taking a cultural relativity approach is not only useful for anthropologists. It is

a very useful tool for diplomats, businessmen, doctors, and any one else who
needs to interact with people from other societies and even other subcultures
within their own society. However, it can be emotionally difficult and
uncomfortable at first to suspend one's own cultural values in these situations.

From an objective perspective, it can be seen that ethnocentrism has both

positive and negative values for a society. The negative potential is obvious.
Ethnocentrism results in prejudices about people from other cultures and the
rejection of their "alien ways." When there is contact with people from other
cultures, ethnocentrism can prevent open communication and result in
misunderstanding and mistrust. This would be highly counterproductive for
businessmen trying to negotiate a trade deal or even just neighbors trying to

10
get along with each other. The positive aspect of ethnocentrism has to do
with the protection that it can provide for a culture. By causing a rejection of
the foods, customs, and perceptions of people in other cultures, it acts as a
conservative force in preserving traditions of one's own culture. It can help
maintain the separation and uniqueness of cultures.

We Do Not Know All of Our Own Culture

No one knows everything about his or her own culture. In all societies, there
are bodies of specialized cultural knowledge that are gender specific--they are
known to men but not women or vice versa. In many societies there are also
bodies of knowledge that are limited largely to particular social classes,
occupations, religious groups, or other special purpose associations.

Gender based skills, knowledge, and perceptions largely stem from the fact
that boys and girls to some extent are treated differently from each other in all
societies. While there may be considerable overlap in what they are taught,
there are some things that are gender specific. In the Western World, for
instance, it is more common to teach boys about the skills of combat and how
machines work. Girls are more often exposed to the subtleties of social
interaction and the use of clothing and makeup to communicate intentions.
Not surprisingly, men are more likely to know how to fix their car or computer,
while women generally are better at predicting the outcome of social
interaction and make finer distinctions in fabric and color terms. You can test
your own gender related cultural knowledge with the following pictures of
relatively common items from North America:

What are the intended functions

of these objects?

Click the button to see

if you are correct.

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 How would you describe the
cloth pattern of the material
used in this woman's skirt?

Click the button to see

if you are correct.

Do you think that this woman

is wearing makeup? If so, what
kinds of makeup is she using?
Look closely and take your time.

Click the button to see

if you are correct.

There are many professions in large-scale societies. Each one usually has its
own terminology and specialized tools. Lawyers, medical doctors, soldiers,
and other specialists use numerous technical terms in their professions. To
make it even more obscure for outsiders, these professionals often use
abbreviations to refer to their technical terms. For instance, orthopedic
surgeons commonly refer to a particular kind of knee operation as ACL
surgery. ACL stands for anterior cruciate ligament. Most people outside of
the medical fields who have not had this surgery are unlikely to know where
this ligament is and what it does, let alone know what the abbreviation
means. You can test your knowledge of another common profession in North
America with the following picture:

Who is most likely to use this

tool? What is its function?

Click the button to see

if you are correct.

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 Culture Gives Us a Range of Permissible Behavior
Patterns
Cultures commonly allow 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--there are
some alternatives rather than hard rules. In North America, 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. North American women are generally more knowledgeable than
men about the subtleties of using clothing and other adornment to
communicate their intentions. The wide range of permissible ways of being a
woman in North America today makes women somewhat unpredictable as
individuals when others are trying to understand their intentions but do not
fully comprehend the cultural patterns. It is particularly hard for men from
other cultures to comprehend the subtle nuances. This at times can result in
awkward or even dangerous situations. For instance, the easy friendliness
and casual, somewhat revealing dress of young North American women in the
summertime is sometimes interpreted by traditional Latin American and
Middle Eastern men as a sexual invitation. What messages do the clothes
and body language of the women in the pictures below communicate to you?
How do you think they might be interpreted by members of the opposite
gender and by people in other cultures? Do you think that the age of the
observer might play a part in their interpretation?

13
The range of permissible ways of dressing and acting as a man or woman are
often very limited in strictly fundamental Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu
societies. In Afghanistan under the Taliban rule during the late 1990's, men
were expected to wear traditional male clothing and were beaten or jailed by
morality police for not having a full beard, playing or listening to music, or
allowing female family members to go out in public unchaperoned. Women
were similarly punished for being in public without wearing a plain loose outer
gown that covered their face and entire body including their feet. They also
were not allowed to go to school or to work outside of the home. To the
surprise of Europeans and North Americans, many of these conservative
cultural patterns did not disappear with the end of Taliban control. They are
deeply ingrained in the Islamic tradition of Afghanistan and in the more
conservative nations of the Middle East.

Conservative Muslim women in the

Middle East. They are fully covered
for modesty in public and are being
escorted by a male relative

(Note: women in some predominantly

Muslim countries lead lives that are
much less constrained by tradition.)

Cultures No Longer Exist in Isolation

It is highly unlikely that there are any societies still
existing in total isolation from the outside world. Even
small, out of the way tribal societies are now being
integrated to some extent into the global economy.
That was not the case a few short generations ago.
Some of the societies in the Highlands of New Guinea
were unaware of anyone beyond their homeland until
the arrival of European Australian miners in the Australian Aborigine wearing
European style clothes
1930's. A few of the Indian tribes in the Upper
Amazon Basin of South America remained unaware of the outside world until
explorers entered their territories in the 1950's and 1960's. Members of these
same New Guinean and Amazonian societies today buy clothes and
household items produced by multinational corporations. They are developing
a growing knowledge of other cultures through schools, radios, and even
televisions and the Internet. As a result of this inevitable process, their
languages and indigenous cultural patterns are being rapidly replaced.
Virtually all societies are now acquiring cultural traits from the economically

14
dominant societies of the world. The most influential of these dominant
societies today are predominantly in North America and Western Europe.
However, even these societies are rapidly adopting words, foods, and other
cultural traits from all over the world.

The emergence of what is essentially a shared global culture is not likely to

result in the current major cultures disappearing in the immediate future the
same way many of the small indigenous ones have. Language differences
and ethnocentrism will very likely prevent that from happening. There are
powerful conflicting trends in the world today. At the same time that many
people are actively embracing globalism , others are reviving tribalism .
The break-up of the former empire of the Soviet Union into largely ethnic
based nations is an example of the latter. Likewise, some of the nations in
Africa whose boundaries were arbitrarily created by Europeans during the
colonial era are now experiencing periodic tribal wars that may result in the
creation of more ethnically based countries.

15
 Methods for Learning About Culture
Anthropologists learn about the culture of another society through fieldwork
and first hand observation in that society. This kind of research is
called ethnography . Since culture primarily relates to the way people
interact with each other, it is not possible to adequately observe it in a
laboratory setting. Imagine how much more would be learned about the
actual patterns of interaction of a typical American family by living in their
home rather than asking one of the family members in a college or university
office.

Cultural anthropologists also do systematic comparisons of similar

cultures. This is called ethnology . An example of an ethnological study
would be a comparison of what cultures are like in societies that have
economies based on hunting and gathering rather than agriculture. The data
for this sort of ethnology would come from the existing ethnographies about
these peoples. In other words, an ethnology is essentially a synthesis of the
work of many ethnographers.

Participant Observation
Anthropologists have discovered that the best way
to really get to know another society and its culture
is to live in it as an active participant rather than
simply an observer. This is called participant
observation . By physically and emotionally
participating in the social interaction of the host
society, it is possible to become accepted as a
member. In practice this requires learning their Participant observation in a
Tibetan Buddhist monastery
language and establishing close friendship ties. It
also usually involves living within the community as a member, eating what
they eat, and taking part in normal family activities with them. This can be a
physical hardship and emotionally stressful, particularly when the host society
is in a rural area of an underdeveloped nation. Sanitation may be poor or
non-existent, the diet may be unsatisfying, and there may be minimal privacy
for personal hygiene and your sex life. However, the trust and familiarity that
can result from participant-observation reduces the cultural barriers and
allows anthropologists to understand the culture of the host society they are
studying.

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It is rarely possible to grasp much of another culture during a short visit.
Anthropologists have learned that long-term residence lasting years is
necessary to see the range of cultural behavior. If a researcher lives in a
small community for only a few months and no one gets married, gives birth,
or dies during that time, it is unlikely that the culturally defined ways of dealing
with these situations will be observed and understood. Likewise, a short-term
visitor is not likely to learn about the intricate details of religious beliefs or
even the complex culturally defined patterns of male-female relationships and
parent-child interaction.
If you came upon this group of
people and knew
nothing about North American or
European
culture, would you be able to figure
out what
was going on? What cultural
patterns could
you identify and understand? For
instance, what
is the significance of the colors and
styles of
clothing? Why are some of the
people holding
flowers? Why are most of them
smiling? Is the
arrangement of people in this photo
random?
How long should an anthropologist live within the society
being studied? There is no simple answer. It depends on the
focus of the study. In some cases the research may be as
narrowly focused as learning about agricultural practices. In
such cases, a stay of a few months to a few years may be adequate.
However, if the focus is the entire culture, many more years may be required.
In practice, anthropologists are likely to initially stay for a year or two and then
make shorter visits back to the host society every few years over the next
decade or more. The American Anthropologist, Napoleon Chagnon, spent
more than 30 years learning about the Yanomamö Indians of Venezuela
and Brazil, though he did not live with them all of that time.

An anthropologist coming as a single visitor to a relatively isolated community,

such as an Indian village in Brazil or a small farming town in Pakistan, is likely
to be viewed with suspicion. An adult male visitor may be looked at as a
potential enemy spy from the outside world or as a sexual predator
threatening to seduce their wives, sisters, and daughters. An unchaperoned
female visitor may be viewed as a prostitute who might corrupt the women of

17
the community. A husband and wife team of anthropologists is likely to be
more acceptable in these cases because their familiar relationship would allay
some of the fears of community members about the visitors' intentions. They
are more likely to be viewed as non-threatening. If the visitors bring their
young children with them, they are even more likely to be seen as fitting a
"normal", peaceful pattern. Members of the host society also may be more
likely to pass on valuable cultural information about every day living skills to
children because they consider this information to be too obvious to need
explanation for adults.

Ideal, Actual, and Believed Behavior

When learning about another culture or subculture first hand, it is always wise
to be cautious about taking at face value what people say about their way of
life. They may be politely deceiving you because they are not sure of your
intentions or they may want to provide a more favorable view of themselves,
their culture, and their society. That is natural. Most of us would do the same
thing. If you knew that important visitors from another country were coming to
your home, would you clean it first, put on nicer clothes, and make sure that
everyone in the house will be on their best behavior? In other words, would
you want them to see your home and family as you think that they should be
rather than how they actually are most of the time?

Human social behavior is often complicated. In trying to comprehend the

interaction between people, it is useful to think in terms of a distinction
between ideal, actual, and believed behavior. Ideal behavior is what we think
we should be doing and what we want others to believe we are doing. Actual
behavior is what is really going on. Believed behavior is what we honestly
think we are doing. In reality, our actions are often different from what we
believe them to be at that time. For example, many North American husbands
assume that they do roughly half of the work of cleaning and maintaining their
home. Their wives would probably dispute that assertion. Does this mean
that the husbands are not telling the truth? No, it usually means that their
perception of what they are doing may not be realistic in this case.
Anthropologists are not only interested in learning about actual behavior.
Ideal and believed behavior also can tell us much about how a society and its
culture work.

18
 Ideal behavior: these children
posing for a photograph with the
Queen of England are on their
best behavior. Do you suppose
that this is how they act all of the
time?

In the more traditional regions of Latin America, the ideal

behavior of men and women is usually more dissimilar
than it is in most of North America and Northern Europe.
Latin American men are expected to be macho's --i.e.,
they should be overtly masculine, confident, strong,
dignified, brave, always in control of their emotions, and
sexually demanding. Women are expected to be
emotional, nurturing, faithful, and passive in response to North American cowboy
the demands of their husbands. In other words, men and ideal of a "man's man"
women should have polar opposite but complementary
personalities and roles in life. There is no room in this ideal Latin American
perception for passive men and aggressive women. In reality, however, few
people actually fit the ideal of extreme masculinity or femininity in their daily
lives. This discrepancy between male and female ideal and actual behavior is
not limited to Latin America, but the contrasts are more apparent in male
dominated societies that tolerate little variation in their permissible cultural
patterns. The cattle ranching life of Western North America is another
subculture that has traditionally placed high value on the ideal of strong, "in
control" men and supportive, faithful women.

Observant visitors usually can find clues to the fact that it

is difficult to live up to the cultural ideals for gender roles.
In rural South China, for instance, there is a traditional
saying that encapsulates the complicated relationship
between husbands and wives. It is "the husband is the
outside master, the wife is the inside master." This
alludes to the fact that the public image in the past was
one in which Chinese husbands were in total control of
their wives and families, but within the home when no one
else was present, wives shared in the decision making
Contemporary Chinese
process. The reality of urban life in mainland China today husband and wife with
has begun to alter this husband and wife relationship. "modern" expectations
Beginning in the late 1970's, the national government's (Shanghai, China)

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desire to stem population pressure led to a one child policy. Most couples are
only allowed to have one child without paying stiff penalties. Because of the
traditional pressure on parents to have a son, girl babies have often been
aborted even though this practice is illegal. The result has been a
disproportionately high percentage of boy babies being born over the last
several decades. An unexpected consequence of this has been that young
marriageable women are now in relatively short supply. They are in a position
to make greater demands on prospective husbands. Young men in China are
faced with the reality that if they want to have a good chance of finding an
educated wife, they must secure a well paying job and have enough money to
buy her a car and a new condo. In addition, they must be prepared to cook,
wash dishes, and do other home maintenance jobs traditionally done by
wives.

Gathering Data About Culture

In most ethnographic fieldwork, only a portion of the host society is actually
studied intensively. Due to the practical impossibility of observing and talking
at length with everyone, only a sample of a community is selected. If the
sample of people is chosen carefully, there is an expectation that it will be
representative of the entire community. This is referred to as a probability
sample --i.e., a sample that has a high probability of reflecting the entire
population. Choosing who will be in the sample can be difficult, especially at
the beginning of a research project when the first contacts are made and the
composition of the society and its culture are still poorly understood.

Usually ethnographers opt for one of three types of probability samples--

random, stratified, or judgment. A random sample is one in which people
are selected on a totally random, unbiased basis. This can be accomplished
by assigning a number to everyone in a community and then letting a
computer generate a series of random numbers. If a 10% sample is needed,
then the first 10% of the random numbers will indicate who will be the focus of
the research. This sampling approach is reasonable for ethnographic
research only when there does not seem to be much difference between the
people in the population. Since this is rarely the case, random sampling is not
often used for ethnographic research.

A stratified sample is one in which people are selected because they

come from distinct sub-groups within the society. This is essentially what the
U.S. Census Bureau does in its national census every 10 years. One member

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from each family is asked to answer for the entire family. This approach may
be used by ethnographers as well if there are distinct, identifiable groups of
people in the society and the information that is being sought is not
specialized knowledge such as the esoteric activities of a secret organization
with restricted membership.

Random sampling Stratified sampling

Most ethnographers rely on a judgment sample . This is a limited number

of key people selected on the basis of criteria deemed critical to the research
questions. For example, religious leaders would be the focus if research
concerns religious beliefs and practices. Likewise, talking mostly to women
would make sense if the research concerned women's roles within society.
The judgment sample approach works best if good informants can be
found. These are people who are not only knowledgeable about their own
culture but who are able and willing to communicate this knowledge in an
understandable way to an outsider. Not everyone has the ability to do this.
The quality of data usually depends on the relationships with informants.
Ethnographers try to develop a warm and close relationship with their
informants. This makes it more likely that they will learn what the host culture
is really like.

Culture Shock
Any person, including an anthropologist, who goes to live in another society
that is culturally very different is likely to initially develop culture shock. This is
a feeling of confusion, distress, and sometimes depression that can result
from the psychological stress that commonly occurs during the first weeks or
months of a total cultural immersion in an alien society. Until the new culture
becomes familiar and comfortable, it is common to have difficulty in
communicating and to make frustrating mistakes in interactions with people in
the host society. This is usually compounded by feelings of homesickness.
These feelings can be emotionally debilitating. However, culture shock
eventually passes and productive fieldwork can begin.

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 Conclusion
Ethnographers can collect reliable data and develop a realistic understanding
of the cultural patterns in another society through a combination of five things:

Proper mental preparation (including adopting the cultural

1.
relativity perspective)
2. Participant-observation
3. Competence in using the host culture's language
4. Long-term residence

Maya village woman

5. Luck in being at the right place at the right time.
Over months and years, the cultural distance between an ethnographer and
the people being studied is reduced. As a result, the complex cultural
patterns become understandable. These five things apply whether research
is in a small-scale society or a large one. They also apply to non-
anthropologists who want to learn about another culture.

In the course of research, anthropologists may gather information about

individuals in the host society that can be embarrassing or even dangerous if
made public. For instance, if during the study of a Maya Indian village in
Central America, paramilitary soldiers arrive and terrorize or even kill
community members, it could be very dangerous for the survivors. Publishing
a report of the incident might result in the soldiers returning to the village and
killing potential witnesses named in your account. In an attempt to help the
Indians by exposing what happened to them, you could be putting their lives in
even greater danger. In these cases, a sense of professional ethics usually
keeps anthropologists from reporting the incident. These are not easy
decisions to make.0
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