What is culture?

What is culture?

• A. Culture is any kind of information acquired from other members of one's species through social learning that influences individual behaviors.
• B. A fixed set of norms inherited genetically.
• C. Only language and art.
• D. A system of laws.

Answer: (A)

Culture is information about shared ways of living that people learn from others and use to guide their behavior. The key idea being tested is that culture arises from social learning and is not something fixed in our genes. It includes beliefs, practices, norms, technologies, languages, rituals, and everyday ways of interacting, not just language or art or formal laws. Because this information is learned through imitation, instruction, and social interaction, it can vary across groups and change over time as people adopt new practices. In contrast, ideas that are genetically inherited aren’t about learned social behavior, and restricting culture to language and art or to laws misses the broad range of practices people pick up from those around them.

Culture is information about shared ways of living that people learn from others and use to guide their behavior. The key idea being tested is that culture arises from social learning and is not something fixed in our genes. It includes beliefs, practices, norms, technologies, languages, rituals, and everyday ways of interacting, not just language or art or formal laws.

Because this information is learned through imitation, instruction, and social interaction, it can vary across groups and change over time as people adopt new practices. In contrast, ideas that are genetically inherited aren’t about learned social behavior, and restricting culture to language and art or to laws misses the broad range of practices people pick up from those around them.