Final Project

By: Brock Nelson

 Objective/Goal

• My main objective/goal is to try and show how

culture can affect many different traits and
situations. I am showing how society and culture
are different and how society, as a whole, can
view certain things.
 Cultural Diversity
• Culture consists of all the shared
products of human groups

• Physical objects and the beliefs,

values, and behaviors shared by a
group

• Material culture is formed by the

physical objects that people create.

• Some examples of material culture are

automobiles, clothing, books,
buildings, cooking utensils, and
computers.
 Culture

• Abstract human creations form a group’s

nonmaterial culture.

• Some examples of nonmaterial culture include

language, ideas, beliefs, rules, skills family
patterns, work practices, and political and
economic systems.
 Society

• Society is a group of mutually interdependent

people who have organized in such a way as to
share a common culture and feeling of unity.

• Society consists of people and culture consists

of the products that people create.
 Components of Culture
• Symbols are anything that stand for something else.

• Language is the organization of written or spoken symbols into a

standardized system.

• Values are shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or

wrong, desirable or undesirable.

• Norms are the shared rules of conduct that tell people how to act in
specific situations.

• Folkways are norms that do not have great moral significance

attached to them.

• Mores have great moral significance attached to them.

 Examining Culture

• Culture is always changing. New objects and

material are constantly being introduced. Culture
is broken down into levels. From complexity,
culture is broken down into traits, complexes,
and patterns.
 Culture
• Culture trait is an individual tool, act, or belief
that is related to a particular situation or need.

• Culture complex is a cluster of interrelated traits.

• Culture pattern is the combination of a number

of culture complexes into an interrelated whole.
An example would be how basketball, football,
track, baseball, etc all combine to form the
American athletic pattern.
 Cultural Variation
• Cultural universals are features, common to all cultures.

• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one’s own culture

and group as superior.

• Cultural relativism is the belief that cultures should be

judged by their own standards.

• Subculture is the unique cultural characteristics of groups.

• Counterculture occurs when a group rejects the values,

norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces
them with a new set of cultural patterns.
 Cultural Conformity

• Ethnic, racial, religious, and geographical

variations in society make a culture rich in
diversity.
Traditional American Values
• There are 15 values that are central to the
American way of life. This includes personal
achievement, work, morality, humanitarianism,
efficiency and practicality, progress, material
comfort, equality, democracy, and freedom.

• Self-fulfillment is a commitment to the full

development of one’s personality, talents, and
potential.

• Narcissism is extreme self-centeredness.

 Social Control
• Internalization is the process by which a norm becomes a part of an individual’s
personality, thereby conditioning the individual to conform to society’s expectations.

• Sanctions are rewards or punishments used to enforce conformity to norms.

• Positive sanction is when a sanction is in the form of a reward.

• Negative sanctions is a punishment or the threat of punishment used to enforce

conformity.

• Formal sanction is a reward or punishment that is given by some formal

organization or regulatory body.

• Informal sanctions is a spontaneous expression of approval or disapproval given

by an individual or a group.

• Social control is the enforcing of norms through either internalization or sanctions.

 Social Change

• Every culture changes over time. Cultures

change at their own speeds. The pace of
change is closely related to the total number of
culture traits in a culture at a particular time. The
more culture traits there are, the faster the
culture can change.
Sources of Social Change

• There are six factors, values and beliefs,

technology, population, diffusion, the physical
environment, and wars and conquests.
 Social Change
• Ideology is a system of beliefs or ideas that justifies some social, moral,
religious, political, or economic interests held by a social group or by society.

• Social movement is a long-term conscious effort to promote or precent social

change.

• Technology is the knowledge and tools that people use to manipulate their
environment for practical purposes.

• Discovery occurs when people recognize new uses for existing elements in
the world or being to understand them in new ways.

• Invention occurs when people sue existing knowledge to create something

that did not previously exist.

• Diffusion is the process of spreading culture traits from one society to another.
 Resistance to Change

• Cultural lag is a situation in which some aspects

of the culture change less rapidly, or lag behind,
other aspects of the same culture.
 Deviance
• Continuously talking to oneself
in public. Drag racing on a
public street or highway.
Regularly using illegal drugs. A
man wearing women’s clothing.
Attacking another person with a
weapon. These are just some of
the actions that many people or
societies believe are deviant.

• Deviance is the behavior that

violates significant social norms.
 Nature of Deviance
• There are many norms that govern behavior.
Some norms deal with insignificant behaviors,
while other norms are vital to society and the
safety of others.

• Not all norm violations are considered deviant

acts. Society determines what acts are
considered deviant. Punishments or
consequences of actions vary from each society.
 Nature of Deviance
• Repeating an offense can label someone to be deviant.
Also, people who commit acts that are seriously negative
for a society can cause them to be labeled deviant.

• To be labeled deviant, a person must be detected

committing a deviant act. The person must also be
stigmatized by society.

• Stigma is a mark of social disgrace that sets the deviant

apart from the rest of society.

• Stigma is, and has been, used as a social control

throughout history.
Social Functions of Deviance
• Low levels of deviance can have some positive
functions. It can help unify a group, clarify norms,
diffuse tension, identify problems, and provide jobs.

• Deviance helps draw the line between conforming

members of society and outsiders. Deviance can
help provide boundaries for acceptable behaviors.
Minor acts deviance provides relief of tension
without disrupting society. Deviance can identify
problem areas. Deviance provides jobs to a wide
range of people.
 Explaining Deviance
• Cultural-transmission theory views deviance as a learned
behavior. Deviant behavior is learned through interaction with
others and so is non-deviant behavior.

• In the center of cultural-transmission theory is differential

association.

• Differential association refers to the proportion of associations

a person has with deviant versus non-deviant person.

• Structural-strain theory is a functionalist perspective on

deviance. Deviance is viewed as the natural outgrowth of
norms, values, and structure of society.
 Explaining Deviance

• Anomie is the situation that arises when the

norms of society are unclear or are no longer
applicable. This leaves people without sufficient
guidelines for behavior, which causes confusion
for people and society.
 Explaining Deviance

• People respond to culturally approved goals in

five ways — through conformity, innovation,
ritualism, retreatism, or rebellion.
 Explaining Deviance
• Control theory turns to social structure for an
explanation of deviant behavior.

• Labeling theory focuses on how individuals come

to be labeled as deviant.

• Primary deviance is nonconformity that goes

undetected by those in authority.

• Secondary deviance results in the individual being

labeled as deviant and accepting the label as true.
 Crime
• Crime affects everyone.
Some people are victims,
others criminals, and
some both. Many people
consider grim to be a
social problem.

• Crime is any act that is

labeled as such by those
in authority, is prohibited
by law, and is punishable
by the government.
 Types of Crime
• Violent Crime: Violent crimes are a very small
percent, but are very alarming. In the U.S., an
aggravated assault occurs every 29 seconds, a
robbery every 46 seconds, a forcible rape every
5 minutes, and murder every 21 minutes.

• Other types of crimes are, crime against

property, victimless crime, white-collar crime,
and organized crime.
 Crime

• Crime syndicate is a large-scale organization of

professional criminals that controls some vice or
business through violence or the threat of
violence.
Criminal Justice System
• The most important parts of the criminal justice system are
the police, the courts, and corrections.

• Plea bargaining is the process of legal negotiation that

allows an accused person to plead guilty to a lesser
charge in return for a lighter sentence.

• Corrections are sanctions that are used to punish

criminals. Corrections serve four functions. They are
retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and social
protection.

• Recidivism is the term for repeated criminal behavior.

 Personal Reaction

• All of the information I included on this

presentation, was what I liked the most. I
enjoyed reading and learning about culture and
society, deviance and crime, and social change.
I didn’t really dislike anything throughout the
semester and I think that this course was great.
 Sources
• https://www.samatters.com/the-normalization-of-
deviance/

• https://www.researchgate.net/post/
What_is_Culture/1

• https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/ending-new-
yorks-stop-and-frisk-did-not-increase-crime

• Sociology Book