Most folks have a very vague idea of what culture means. The term has become a buzzword, heard and spoken everywhere, repeated ad nauseum in every medium, with little understanding. In vague, general terms it's what makes "them" different from "us." It's language, customs, food, art, music architecture, and lifestyle. And that is all true; these are certainly part and parcel of what we call culture. But there's more to it than that
There are a number of social sciences that actually define and study culture: anthropology and sociology are the two most commonly known. There are also the very specialized fields of Intercultural Communication, Cultural Psychology, Sociolinguistics and Cultural Anthropology which each deal profoundly with various aspects of culture. Among these sciences and studies there are over 500 definitions of culture. One that is simple and often used is:
Culture is all learned behavior.
Learned behavior consists of everything that would not be considered instinct. For example, all human beings have the natural instinct to find food and eat. However, the way a specific group chooses to do that, what they choose to eat, is culture, not instinct. Animals operate solely on instinct and supposedly have no culture, though that assumption has come into question.
The concept of culture is often initially taught in beginning anthropology and sociology courses using the "cultural iceberg:"
Think of an iceberg in the water. There's a part of the iceberg you can see above the water line. The part that is above the water, represents all the visible components of culture: art forms, music, foods, food customs, funerary customs, tools and technology, dress, religious customs, objects and artifacts, and a host of others. Under the water is the part you can't see, which is basically composed of beliefs, values, philosophy, worldview, perceptions and ways of thinking. This part of the iceberg obviously supports the part above the water. Which part of the iceberg is the largest? Obviously, it's the invisible part and this is exactly what you run up against when you experience so called culture shock, culture bumps, and cultural conflict. A culture bumpis any specific experience in which someone experiences dissonance, discomfort, or a problem due to a cultural difference. The person involved may think that the problem is due to a visual component of culture, but most often it's what you don't see or understand that causes the problem, i.e. the invisible part of the iceberg. What's more, most of our own culture is unconscious and we are not totally aware of our culture's core beliefs and philosophies because we have internalized these so deeply, and accepted them as reality and truth.
Culture is transmitted from day one of babyhood by parents and families, and the transmission is continued through other social institutions such as school, church, peer groups, and other social groups, media, usually through the course of a lifetime.
All cultures believe that their culture is right and good. This is the definition of ethnocentrism, and it is characteristic of all human beings from every culture (whether they believe it or not!). The reason we are ethnocentric is that the core beliefs, worldviews and philosophies of our own culture make up much of what we call reality, and are largely unconscious, and highly internalized. Until we've spent years trying to unearth these and examine them for what they are, your cultural norms will dictate your definitions of good, bad, rude, polite, right and wrong.
Here is an example of a cultural bump in which the two parties involved had no idea of why they had a negative reaction. In a cultural experiment in which people were observed in various social situations, two business people, one North American and the other South American, had a meeting. After the meeting, the North American had the impression that the South American was "pushy," but when asked the specific behavior which provoked this response, could not really answer adequately. The South American thought the North American was "cold", and also could not really say why. At the time the study was carried out it was ascertained that the acceptable body distance between two people was to blame.
North Americans stand and sit a little further apart, in a fairly defined comfort zone. The comfort zone of South Americans is a little different, a bit closer. You can see that this whole aspect of culture was certainly not at the conscious awareness level of the two people involved. Other problems that arose include different ways and interpretations of compliments, and a different level of intimacy expected between the two parties. This study is old and may not hold true today, as another characteristic of culture is that it is always changing. Especially with the advent of the internet, and global mass media, very interesting changes are taking place in individual cultures, and the world obviously is becoming more homogeneous. And, there are all sorts of good/bad opinions about that fact as well!
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