CULTURE

The term culture has become central and of primary importance to the social sciences; it is difficult, however, to encompass in a single definition all the meanings attached to it. After surveying and analyzing more than 160 definitions, A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn have summarized the basic ideas as follows: "Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action" (Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions 357).

Concept

In Latin and in languages that have borrowed from Latin, the term culture implies cultivation, or becoming cultured, and is used to refer to individuals rather than to groups. This meaning has been retained in both popular and literary English, especially within the humanistic tradition. Similarly, the German word Kultur is equated with the idea of "higher" values and the enlightenment of society. Matthew Arnold elaborated this meaning, proposing that culture is, or ought to be the "study of perfection," consisting in "an inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances" [Culture and Anarchy, ed. J. D. Wilson (Cambridge, England 1960) 48].

Introduction in the Social Sciences. The concept as used in the social sciences was introduced into English by E. B. Tylor [Primitive Culture (London 1871)] but did not become established as a key concept in English anthropology until its use by Sir James Frazer in 1885. Even then the older term custom continued to be preferred. British social anthropologists, principally concerned with social structure, were reluctant to use the newer term widely. Recent writers have reintroduced it in order to describe the part of a people's behavior that cannot be subsumed under social structure, since "no account of social relationships … can be complete unless it includes reference to what it means to the people who have it … for human beings have cultures, systems of beliefs and values" [J. Beattie, Other Cultures (New York 1964) 13]. Nevertheless the term custom is frequently used in place of culture. There is an awareness that culture is more inclusive, whereas custom refers to "habits" and usages, usually of a nontechnical sort, learned by the individual and shared by a group.

Culture has sometimes been used as a substitute for or in opposition to civilization. In England and France, the term civilization was used in preference to culture in regard to complex societies, ancient and modern. Civilization implied a "high" culture characterized by writing and a highly developed political organization, i.e., a state administered from cities and exercising dominance over others. As in America, culture and civilization were also used interchangeably by European writers.

The culture concept has had a longer history in Germany. Kroeber and Kluckhohn have traced it back to the end of the 18th century. At first the idea as it appeared in general histories had an almost modern ring. Culture implied progress in cultivation toward enlightenment, but there was already an interest in comparing cultures. During a second phase of development, from Kant to Hegel, the emphasis shifted more to the idea of spirit (Geist ) and its ennoblement. Kultur was opposed to crude nature. In a third phase, beginning with the ethnographer Gustav Friedrich Klemm [Allgemeine Culturgeschichte der Menschheit, 10 v. (Leipzig 1843–52)], the more modern and technical meaning came into use. Klemm suggested a definition that in its enumerative aspects (i.e., the study of customs, arts, skills, domestic and public life in peace and war, religion, science, and art) foreshadowed the now classic definition by Tylor. Indeed, Tylor was influenced by Klemm and decided to use the term culture instead of his earlier term civilization because it was more inclusive and descriptive. Thus, among social scientists culture began to denote the characteristic modes of human existence.

Principal Emphases. The precise meaning that is given to the concept in modern social science tends to vary according to the interests and purposes of anthropologists and sociologists, both of whom use the term most frequently, and of psychologists, psychiatrists, and other social scientists and humanistic scholars. Kroeber and Kluckhohn have identified six major emphases.

First, one view emphasizes the comprehensive totality of culture and the enumeration of aspects of cultural content. Customs characterizing group behavior and habits characterizing individual behavior, as well as the products of both, comprise the content of culture. Culture is based on the life of a group or a society and is learned. The learning of culture is implied or explicitly stated by most authors. The role of symbolism, especially in language, is stressed as an aspect of culture, as is the idea that culture has historical depth.

Second, other conceptions tend to emphasize history, or the idea of a social heritage or a tradition. Ralph Linton notes that "as a general term, culture means the total social heredity of mankind, while as a specific term, a culture means a particular strain of social heredity" [The Study of Man (New York 1936) 78].

Third, still others emphasize a distinctive way of life; or normative ideas and their consequences; or culture as a "design for living" or as "that whole 'way of life' which is determined by the social environment" [O. Klineberg, Race Differences (New York 1935) 255]. Some, such as the sociologist P. A. Sorokin, emphasize values and ideals: "The cultural aspect of the superorganic universe consists of meanings, values, norms, their action and relationships, their integrated and unintegrated groups … as they are objectified through overt actions and other vehicles in the empirical and sociocultural universe" [Society, Culture and Personality (New York 1947) 313].

Fourth, emphasis may be placed on the psychological aspects of culture insofar as they point to such processes as adjustment, learning, and habit formation. Culture becomes a means for solving problems, for satisfying needs, and for adjusting to the environment as well as to other men. This view is somewhat widely held by followers of Bronislaw Malinowski.

Fifth, the structural and hence also the systematic nature of culture may be stressed. This implies that the elements of culture are related and linked. Culture becomes abstract, a conceptual model of behavior, but not behavior itself. Parts of culture are functionally interrelated. Terms such as cultural system, cultural configuration, and cultural organization become key terms in this approach.

Finally, culture may be conceived as a product of human action. This results from attempts to answer the question of how culture comes to exist. Culture is seen on the one hand as the result of the interaction of individuals and their environment; on the other, as "the summation of all the ideas for standardized types of behavior"(C. Kluckhohn and W. H. Kelly, "The Concept of Culture" in Linton, ed., The Science of Man 97), and as dependent on the use of systems of symbols by man.

Component Elements

Most social scientists note that although each culture is unique, all cultures can be analyzed from the point of view of (1) abstract qualities, categorized according to standard anthropological concepts; (2) the substantive aspects, or content, of culture, which can be variously classified; and (3) the organization of this content into systems and subsystems that are to some extent integrated.

Analysis of Abstract Qualities. Basic to any consideration is the behavioral reference of culture. Behavior ultimately provides the basic data from which culture is abstracted. Not all behavior provides such data, however; it must be repetitive and show some degree of structuring, which implies standardization. In short, behavioral units form patterns. Wherever behavioral elements form a pattern, the emphasis is on the relationships between the elements, rather than on content. Kroeber distinguishes three kinds of patterns: the universal, manifest in speech, art, knowledge, religion, etc.; the systematic, the wholeculture pattern that reveals the coherence of an entire cultural system; and the style, a characteristic mode of doing or expressing things (Anthropology 311–43). Since behavior is more or less continuous, forming a behavioral stream, patterns may be recognized and distinguished from one another through the identification of discontinuities that produce sets of behaviors. Not all patterns are evenly distributed in a society. In Linton's terms, when they are common to all members of a society, they are universal, in contrast to specialties, which are restricted to selected individuals (such as doctors, lawyers, scientists), and to alternatives, which suggest that there are several equally legitimate ways of thinking, doing, knowing (The Study of Man 272–74).

Social scientists frequently begin their work through observation of human aggregates; the behavioral patterns they describe constitute the overt culture. This includes socially standardized motor activities readily understood by the members of the subject people, e.g., houses, books, canoes, speech forms, clothing, and appropriate postures for particular situations. But no description would be complete without covert culture. It is not directly observable because sentiments, beliefs, values, and fears may only be inferred from what people say about their own subjective states. It may be necessary to use psychological depth techniques to obtain data on this dimension of culture.

There is a closely related distinction between explicit and implicit cultural patterns. Explicit patterns are readily verbalized by members of a group. This implies that the pattern is recognized and defined by the people being studied. The reference is to the cognitive "map" by which people orient their behavior more or less rationally. Most Americans can readily describe at least part of a school system, the manner of staffing it, the norms controlling it, and how they have to behave in relation to it. Implicit cultural patterns, in contrast, are forms of behavior about which no coherent account can be given, even though they have the same compelling force. In the U.S., social relationships between friends or between husband and wife are in large measure controlled by implicit canons of appropriateness, rather than by explicit norms; one "knows" how to behave. Most users of any language speak grammatically although they may not know the rules of the grammar. Implicit culture may also refer to assumptions, postulates, and themes never made explicit.

When people in a society give expression to the appropriate mode of behaving, that is, make statements about the way they should behave, the way they would like to behave, or the way they believe they behave, they are describing the ideal culture. The term refers to the perceptual, cognitive, and evaluative behavior of a people. Cultural ideals do not imply desirability. For example, if a member of a community asserts that delinquency is getting out of hand and if this sentiment is shared by a large proportion of the community, the members are making "ideal" statements that may have no basis in fact. Only careful social studies of the actual behavior of juveniles can reveal the real culture (sometimes called manifest culture). Empirical evidence alone can establish the difference or concordance between ideal and real patterns. If the discrepancy between the ideal and the real is appreciated in a society, this may provide the occasion for the introduction of change.

Cultural patterns and their arrangements may be said to be facilitating insofar as they extend man's control over his environment and society. Machines that allow man to harness and convert energy and social arrangements and organizations with the associated values, norms, beliefs, and knowledge allow man to increase and extend his activities. On the other hand, every culture includes rules and limitations on man's behavior; there are patterned ways of restraining man. Every culture has not only systems of prescription but also systems of proscription manifest in rules against aggression, the control of the sexual impulse illustrated in the universal prohibition of incest, etc. The specific and concrete content and structure of these patterns varies considerably from culture to culture.

Man's culture, ideas, beliefs, norms, and the products of his activities tend to outlive particular individuals and generations. Culture is the nongenetic social heritage (Linton) that is not entirely based on a particular human organism; individuals are born into a culture, and often the culture outlives them. In this sense, culture becomes superorganic (Kroeber). All the same, without the biological organism in which thinking, feeling, and acting take place, culture would cease to exist. Culture is man-made; it is also dependent on man's normal constitution. Much, if not all, cultural activity centers on biological needs. For this reason, there is an organic base for culture.

Analysis of Content. The culture trait or element refers to an identifiable unit of a culture. How small or how large a trait is is determined by the purpose of the analysis. Pattern and trait are sometimes used interchangeably; however, methodologically, this is not altogether accurate, because a pattern is a more abstract derivation of observed behavior that is regular and recurring, whereas a trait relates more directly to observed behavior, a cultural artifact, or other feature. Thus, fishing, hunting, or agriculture may be considered cultural traits when they have diagnostic value for establishing relationships between cultures. For an archeologist, the tempering of clay used for pottery or the technique used for making a pot (e.g., using a wheel, or coiling the clay and molding it with an anvil paddle) may be diagnostic traits that differentiate and relate culture.

Combinations of traits that are organized or related to one another so that they form an organic unity are called culture complexes. The traits persist in certain fixed relationships. Thus if any one trait considered vital for the complex is removed, the complex has become another thing. The plow complex, for instance, is comprised of a draft animal, a harness, a plow, and a male operator. After making its first appearance in Mesopotamia more than 5,500 years ago, it reached nearly every part of the world. Archeologists and at least one cultural anthropologist have also used the term assemblage, "a cluster or associated body of ideas, symbols, artifacts and behavior called into play by a culturally significant event." The various parts of an assemblage are components. Assemblages, unlike complexes, are clusters of traits that appear only in certain situations, such as initiation rites [M. E. Opler, "Component, Assemblage, and Theme in Cultural Integration and Differentiation," American Anthropologist 61 (1959) 955–64].

Interest in the geographic distribution of cultural traits and complexes, that is, the spatial classification of cultures, gave rise to the concept of the culture area. It was suggested by museum presentations of ethnological specimens (traits of material culture) according to geographical areas (rather than some evolutionary or other taxonomic scheme). Clark Wissler recalled, "We saw that the natives of the New World could be grouped according to single culture traits, giving us food areas, textile areas, ceramic areas, etc. If, however, we take all the traits into simultaneous consideration and shift our view to the social, or tribal units, we are able to form fairly definite groups. This will give us culture areas, or classification of culture groups according to their culture traits" [The American Indian (2d ed. New York 1922) 217–18].

Kroeber not only expanded this new research and drew some new boundaries for the more than 15 culture areas in the New World, but was interested also in the degree to which there was concordance between them and natural areas. In some instances, as in California, the northwest coast, and the plains, there was considerable concordance; elsewhere there was little or none, suggesting the interdependence of culture and environment, but no direct causal relationship. There is no agreement on criteria for classifying culture areas, and authors tend to draw boundaries differently. An attempt to classify ethnic units as cult units met considerable criticism, partially because it did not resolve the problem of the relatively impressionistic way in which traits, complexes, etc., are selected for classification [R. Narroll et al., "On Ethnic Unit Classification," Current Anthropology 5 (1964) 283–312].

Although cultural content is presented variously according to problems under consideration and methodology, it is generally agreed that all cultures share some broad, descriptive qualities. Detailed catalogues of cultural elements have been designed for field workers and analysts, e.g., British Association for Advancement of Science, Notes and Queries on Anthropology (6th ed. London 1951), and Human Relations Area Files, Outline of Cultural Materials (New Haven, Connecticut 1961). These descriptive outlines attempt to group cultural findings under headings that are general enough to be labeled cultural universals since they apply to all cultures of mankind, viz: (1) Technology, the utilization of natural resources to secure food and manufacture tools, weapons, clothing, shelters, containers, and other artifacts necessary to life. (2) Economic organization, comprising the patterns of behavior and the resultant organization of society relative to production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. (3) Social organization, comprising the social institutions that determine the positions of men and women in a society and thus channel their personal relationships into two major classes, those that derive from kinship and those that derive from the more or less free association of individuals. (4) Political organization, frequently included under social organization but more recently the focus of special attention as pertaining to social relationships involving leadership and its administrative apparatus, recognized legal machinery, police, armies, and the form and control of social conflict on local and national levels. (5) Education, viewed broadly as comprising all the ways through which the individual learns the appropriate ways of behaving in his cultural milieu, including not only the conscious transmission of culture to the individual, but also the ways in which the culture subtly molds the individual to become an acceptable member of his group or the other groups he joins during his life cycle. (6) Religion, that behavior relative to man's relations to unknown forces and the concomitant systems of belief and ritual associated with such forces. see religion (in primitive culture). (7) Symbolic culture, encompassing "systems of symbols and the techniques of using them relative to the acquisition, ordering, transferring of knowledge," especially through language, which becomes an intricate part of culture if not the most important part of the system of symbols, and also through the arts, folklore, drama, and music [R. R. Beals and H. Hoijer, An Introduction to Anthropology (2d ed. New York 1965) 287–88].

Integration of Culture. It is a widely accepted assumption in the social sciences that cultures differ not only in content but also in the integration or organization of their components. In this view cultures form systems with limits that are more or less open.

Uniqueness. The idea that a culture is more than the sum of its parts is expressed in a variety of ways. Ruth Benedict was a pioneer in illustrating integration in terms of a unified plan, a Leitmotiv, or configuration. She wrote that "a culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action. Within each culture there comes into being characteristic purposes not necessarily shared by other types of society. In obedience to these purposes, each people further and further consolidates its experience, and in proportion to the urgency of these drives, the heterogeneous items of behavior take more and more congruous shape" [Patterns of Culture (New York 1934) 42]. Not all cultures succeed equally well in integrating these heterogeneous items. Benedict isolated and described two major motifs, the Apollonian among the Pueblo peoples and the Dionysian among the Plains peoples: "The desire of the Dionysian, in personal experience or in ritual, is to press through it toward a certain psychological state, to achieve access…. He values the illuminations of frenzy…. The Apolloniandistrusts all this and has often little idea of the nature of such experiences…. He keeps the middle of the road, stays within the known map, does not meddle with disruptive psychological states" (72).

A psychological emphasis is also reflected in the concept of ethos, a general term designating the affective character of a culture. For some, however, it is less inclusive and differentiates between the major values, implicit premises, acquired drives, etc., that underlie behavior. J. Honigmann describes the ethos of the Kaska of British Columbia in terms of ego-centricity, utilitarianism, deference, flexibility, dependence, and emotional isolation; these emotional qualities "explain" their behavior in different situations [Culture and Ethos of Kaska Society (New Haven 1949)]. As Kroeber remarks, the concept of ethos emphasizes cultural goals and purposes and refers "not so much to the specific ethics or moral code of the culture as to its total quality, to what would constitute disposition or character in an individual; to the system of ideals and values that dominate the culture and so tend to control the type of behavior of its members" (Anthropology 294).

Continuity. Emphasizing the historical continuity of cultures, and viewing a culture as a historically derived system, Kroeber has sought cultural climaxes in the major culture areas of the world, on the assumption that the accumulation of cultural traits "seems to have corresponded essentially with a period of successful organization of culture content—organization in part into a conscious system of ideas but especially into an integrated nexus of styles, standards and values" ["Cultural Intensity and Climax" in The Nature of Culture (Chicago 1952) 340]. In recognition of the diachronic integration of culture, Robert Redfield has referred to the relation of historical events to one another and to the central purposes of the small community. Large complex societies (e.g., civilizations) are composed of cities and villages, urbanites and peasants that form societies within societies (part-societies) and have corresponding great and little traditions. The great tradition cultivated in schools or temples is the tradition of the philosopher, theologian, and literary man that is handed down from generation to generation. "The little tradition works itself out and keeps itself going in the lives of the unlettered" in the small community and among the great majority of little people. But "the two traditions are interdependent. Great and little traditions have long affected each other and continue to do so" through the interchange of personnel. The priests in the village, for instance, as carriers of the great tradition, have to modify their approach to villagers, and the urbanite is dependent upon the services and products of the peasant (Peasant Society and Culture 70–71). Characteristic of Redfield's approach is his use of tradition as an over-arching principle that integrates apparent opposites that are themselves historically derived.

Functional Integration. Another approach to the problem of cultural integration derives from the recognition that elements in culture may be functionally related to one another or to a cultural whole. Functional integration in the past has stressed pattern maintenance and need satisfaction. The functional interpretations of Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown were both concerned with whole cultural systems, but with important differences. According to Malinowski, functional integration is achieved when cultural traits, complexes, and institutions serve individual needs in a society. To the extent that cultural elements promote adaptation to the social and natural environment, to that extent the culture is more, rather than less, integrated. Radcliffe-Brown was concerned with how the relation of sociocultural arrangements to one another helps to maintain the system rather than the individual. The family, for example, in addition to its obvious reproductive function, contributes to the continuity of the society through all its associated behavior patterns, be they economic, religious, legal, or political. Such functional integration presumably contributes to social cohesion, social stability, and group solidarity.

Themes. Linton also stressed the interrelationships of parts in the concept of cultural interest: "Every culture has several interests which are of primary importance and which together constitute an integrated system. To select even two or three of these as the focal points for the whole culture configuration probably involves a distortion of the actual condition, but such distortion is requisite to any comprehensible descriptive account" (The Study of Man 443). So too, when members of a society show much concern about a particular cultural feature, such as success in American culture, this can be called a cultural focus (Herskovits) since apparently unrelated behavioral elements come to a focus at this point and integrate or relate diverse patterns of behavior. Recognizing the contradictions as well as the relationships in culture, Opler has suggested that culture patterns may be integrated around several themes, since most cultures appear not to have as total an integration as Benedict's work suggests. A theme is "a postulate or position, declared or implied, and usually controlling behavior or stimulating activity, which is tacitly approved or openly promoted in a society" ["Some Recently Developed Concepts Relating to Culture," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 4 (1948) 120]. Analysis recognizes the interplay of themes and dynamic qualities. Similarly the notion of postulates of culture (Hoebel) calls attention to the logical integration in all societies. Sorokin speaks of the logico-meaningful integration that "has its own common denominator of all relevant phenomena: it is the identity (or similarity) of central meaning, idea, or mental bias that permeates all logically related fragments" [Social and Cultural Dynamics 4 v. (New York 1937–41) 1.24]. Thus, the apparent irrationality of exotic peoples can be explained away if the observer is able to isolate basic assumptions of their cultures. Contradictions can be understood either in terms of compartmentalization—where the people under study do not perceive any connection between two sets of behavior—or of an underlying assumption about life in general that explains the relationships between apparently divergent phenomena.

Values. In an attempt to bring sociological, psychological, and philosophical ideas pertaining to the ideational realm of culture into a more general frame of reference, the Harvard department of social relations has investigated problems of cultural values. Clyde Kluckhohn has defined a value as a conceptualization "explicit, or implicit, distinctive of an individual or characteristic of a group, of the desirable which influences the selection from available modes, means, and ends of action," and value orientations as "complex, but definitely patterned (rank ordered) principles, resulting from the transactional interplay of three analytically distinguishable elements of the evaluative process—the cognitive, the affective, and the directive elements-which give order and direction to the ever-flowing stream of human acts and thoughts as these relate to the solution of common human problems" ["Values and Value Orientations in the Theory of Action" in T. Parsons et al., Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1951) 395, 411]. An important contribution of this effort is the stress on the valuation process and the attempt to move beyond the static description of structural integration of culture. This approach tries not only to emphasize the rational (logical) and purely subjective (affective) modes through which individuals in a culture orient themselves, but recognizes also that"there would be no ordered, no systematic, value system without a directive tendency which both aids in the selection among possible value systems and also serves to give continuity to the total system" [F. R. Kluckhohn and F. L. Strodtbeck, Variations in Value Orientations (Evanston, Illinois 1961) 8].

Culture, Society, and Individual

As Kroeber and Kluckhohn have explained, "culture is produced and changed, concretely, by individuals… each distinctive life-way is also the product of a group. Yet culture is not necessarily tied throughout time to a particular society. Islamic culture, as we know it today, cuts across communities, societies, and nations. Roman society ceased to exist as such more than a millennium ago, but Roman culture was a vital force throughout the Middle Ages and, in certain aspects, is still alive today" (op. cit. 367). For analytical purposes at least, concrete behavior and its products may be conceptualized in social, cultural, and psychological dimensions. These dimensions are not empirically but analytically distinct. There is, however, no unified theory of human behavior, and what is social or cultural or psychological is not always agreed upon.

Culture and Personality. The individual is born into a human group (usually the social subsystem called the family) composed of culturally defined social roles that assure the helpless infant's reaching maturity. Unlike other animals, the human child depends for a long time on other members of his society to satisfy and meet his many needs in the maturation process. This dependency varies in length of time, however; in American society, for example, as compared with many others, it is extended considerably beyond puberty. At first the needs of the infant are met within the basic or extended family, but the modes in which they are met vary in accordance with customary ways of raising babies (i.e., with cultural systems). By the time the individual reaches maturity (also variable according to cultural prescriptions, but usually defined as the time when he can provide for his own needs), he has well established habits. This is not to say that the habits may not be changed, that new ones cannot be learned or some old ones be displaced. The processes of socialization (learning the appropriate social responses) and enculturation (learning the appropriate cultural responses in terms of symbols, etc.) are neverending. This human capability also makes possible cultural change.

The individual learns his social and cultural system and those of others (if he travels or is forced to live in another system) both through formal and informal means. These include schools or their equivalents in nonliterate societies (e.g., initiation rites) and habituation; that is, cultural and social behaviors are learned without being explicitly taught—they are "just picked up"—and in this there is little conscious learning but rather unconscious imitation. Nevertheless, even in relatively small communities, no person ever acquires the whole inventory of all behavioral responses appropriate to his culture. In part this is related to the various ways in which people organize themselves to educate their children. The system of social interaction may bring individuals in close association in schools, with grandparents, with organized groups of older children who teach younger ones (as in agegraded societies), or with the community as a whole. Learning occurs when appropriate behavior is rewarded or approval is withheld. Even when the socializing and enculturating processes fail, and when the individual may be said to be socially or mentally ill, rebellion is manifested in terms of his own culture and society.

The individual acquires his culture within the everexpanding network of social relationships. Culture may be thought of as the medium in which the personality develops. Thus the techniques and ideas that individuals learn have a lasting effect on the adult person; yet these cultural behaviors differ between groups, communities, and societies. It is possible to say that different norms and social institutions produce different personality structures; and if they are widely shared in a population, the result is referred to as basic personality, i.e., "a structure of articulated personality characteristics and processes attributable, non-statistically, to almost all members of some culturally bounded population" (A. F. C. Wallace, Culture and Personality 106). The statistical distribution of personality traits determined by certain psychological tests (Thematic Apperception or Rorschach tests, for instance) discloses modal personality. The significance of personality variation lies in the fact that different societies and cultures may emphasize or reward some types more than others. Consequences for the direction of culture change may result through suppression of those who do not have the requisite personality traits or of those whose personalities are not malleable enough to change.

Culture and Social Relations. Social relationships as elements of the social system are greatly influenced by culture. In the process of maturation the individual learns cultural obligations, first from interacting with his mother, later with other members of his family, and eventually with individuals outside the family. Each person met affects the individual in some way, but the relationships are reciprocal; that is, all individuals involved in interaction have certain expectations of each other. To the extent that an individual learns to meet these expectations, others in his interactive network of social relationships will reward him according to the standards set by the culture. Although the expectations of two or more interacting individuals must in some degree be complementary, they need not be identical and indeed rarely are. It is the regularity of expectations that allows social life, for it ensures a necessary minimum of predictability among individuals. Learning a culture may be said to involve meeting expectations and holding them in the mind and using the appropriate ones in the appropriate situations.

The social system can be conceived in terms of reciprocal social relationships and mutually adjusted expectations and their controlling norms; this pattern is called a system of social roles (analogous to but not identical with theatrical roles). Social roles are performed by actors—the term calls attention to the interchangeability of individuals in the role. Not everyone performs a role according to culturally standardized expectations; nevertheless role performance is socially controlled and involves positive and negative sanctions in conformity with cultural norms. An individual who does not meet the standards or who violates the norms associated with the role must relinquish the role. For example, a man who does not meet the socially and culturally defined role expectations of the father may lose this role by having his children placed in foster homes. Legal sanctions are brought against him. It is useful, however, to distinguish between the individual personality, sometimes referred to by the individual as the "real me," and the social personality, which reflects the capacity and the quality of the individual in performing his role, the "social me." Although one affects the other, it is the individual style with which roles are performed that gives considerable variation in role performance. The latitude allowed in role performance is, however, a matter determined largely by the cultural norms.

It is easy to reduce personality to cultural and social explanations or to equate personality traits with cultural traits (cf. Benedict). In regard to homogeneous cultures, there appears to be much concordance between culture and personality. But the "fit" is not precise in complex heterogeneous cultures, and consequently the ideas of modal personality extended to national character have been challenged. There is currently no satisfactory theory to account for the recognized empirical interrelationships between culture, society, and the individual.

Theories of Culture Growth

Man in nearly all cultures has been concerned about his origins, development, and differences and has proposed many different explanations in myth, fantasy, and theory. By the beginning of the 19th century there was a strong tendency to formulate evolutionary theories. A hundred years later there was a decided reaction against such sweeping explanations and a new interest in detailed, historically descriptive studies. More recently, evolutionary schemes have again become important in social science. It is convenient to discuss these theories under three headings: (1) evolutionary approaches, old and new, (2) historical explanations, and (3) diffusionism. Recent views of cultural change are presented in a final section.

Evolutionary Theories. Underlying most ideas of cultural growth is the observation that for mankind as a whole culture has expanded in time and space. The everincreasing finds of archeology and human paleontology have suggested that man's culture began simply and increased in content and complexity through the ages. Levels of cultural growth are recognized: the life of the earliest men was concerned principally with food gathering and was followed by the slow acquisition of additional knowledge and techniques leading to food production prior to the development of urban centers and the rise of states. Evidence for these levels or stages has been accumulated from the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas.

The early accumulation of evidence from history and prehistory led to increased speculation on the origin and growth of "high" cultures. Klemm tried to show in his early work how mankind had passed through successive stages of savagery, tameness, and freedom. August comte, sometimes referred to as the father of sociology, had man advancing from the theological to the metaphysical to the positive, or scientific, stage. Herbert spencer, although less optimistic about the advances of mankind, nevertheless had man pass through fixed stages dictated by "natural law." By 1860, which marks a turning point in thinking about man's development, explanations of cultural growth were given a distinct evolutionary turn by the influence of Charles darwin's Origin of Species (1859).

Analogies with Biological Evolution. The presumed analogy between biological evolution and cultural evolution stimulated much research, leading investigators into a number of blind alleys yet increasing the yield of data through field investigations. Evolutionary theories assumed that elements of culture appearing among the simplest contemporary societies were "survivals" from the past and that the evolutionary process moved from simplicity in the direction of increasing complexity and heterogeneity. Thus, the customs of man could be arranged in a series, or in stages, generally divided into savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The comprehensive approaches of the British anthropologist Tylor and the American Lewis Henry Morgan ordered the numerous ethnographic data on "a rough scale of civilization [representing] a transition from the savage state to our own" (Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1.24). Morgan divided the stages of mankind into smaller subdivisions, noting the appearance of diagnostic cultural traits to mark the "necessary sequences of progress" (Ancient Society, New York 1877).

Unilinear evolutionary thought of the 19th century proposed theories of progress rather than empirical formulations of what actually happened. It was based on faulty evidence, did not take into account regional variations, and underplayed the effects of cultural borrowing. Differences in the various conditions of mankind were explained in terms of climate, soil, race, and other factors; yet the mainspring for this progress was attributed to a never-defined psychic unity characteristic of all mankind. Major limitations of 19th-century evolutionary explanations may be traced to uncritical comparisons of cultural traits without recognition of the importance of their functional integration and the contexts in which they appeared.

Neoevolutionary Theories. Current theories of cultural growth are considerably more sophisticated, largely because better and more extensive archeological and ethnographic data have become available. Even modern sociology has reintroduced the problem of social evolution. The major difference between the older approaches and the more recent ones is the development of criteria for the assessment of evolutionary change. Leslie A. White has had considerable influence on contemporary thought by suggesting as an objective measure of progress the increasingly efficient use of human effort through technological control. This index is based on the assumption that "cultures are dynamic systems; they require energy for their activation. The history of civilization is the story of the control over forces of nature by cultural means"(362). In his view, the cultural system is "a series of three horizontal strata: the technological layer on the bottom, the philosophical on the top, the sociological stratum in between," but "the technological system is basic and primary" (366). As technology changes, especially through its ability to convert energy ever more efficiently, so also culture as a whole is transformed. The social and philosophical strata are admitted to have a conditioning but not a determining influence upon technology. White's cultural determinism has been criticized by a number of contemporary anthropologists, especially by those who give primary or at least equal weight to the important influence of ideas, values, and social relationships.

Concern for the causes underlying the development and evolution of culture has led J. H. Steward to look at the relationship of technology and environment as a problem of adjustment. Varying adjustment patterns give rise to different successive "levels of sociocultural integration" (43–63). Changes occurring in any part of the sociocultural system may become basic adjustments. The ecological adjustments made in simple hunting and gathering cultures constitute a cultural core around which family, religion, and other cultural activities are integrated to form cultural types. But through any shift in the relationships of cultural patterns (resulting from either innovation or cultural contact) the core may take on a new structure; and as population and other factors also change, a new level of sociocultural integration is achieved. Steward made a tentative test of this hypothesis by comparing the development of five early cultures culminating in civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, North China, northern Peru, and Meso-America. All developed from a hunting and gathering base in a semiarid environment and followed similar sequences through incipient agriculture, a formative stage, regional florescence, an initial empire, dark ages, to cyclical conquests.

Although Steward's formulations lack precision, they have nevertheless given rise to new interpretations, especially by Robert J. Braidwood and G. R. Willey. These theories of multilinear evolutionism are cognizant of the complexity of the problems of diverse sequences of cultural development in different parts of the world. Thus Steward and other neoevolutionists, in proceeding carefully, have begun to establish sequences of development that are not as all-encompassing as those of the universal evolutionists, but account more adequately for processes in cultural development.

Change and the Moral Order. Although not in the stream of cultural evolutionism, Redfield was also concerned with long-term change. Much of his early work was devoted to the integration of the folk society in contrast to the urban society. The folk society is a characteristically small, isolated, close-knit, homogeneous entity. Its social relationships are principally patterned around kinship; its members have a supernaturalistic world view; and its values are more implicit than explicit. Civilization, in contrast, consists not only of things added to society—such as cities, writing, public works, the state, the market—but also of increased heterogeneity, increased division of labor, partial displacement of personal ties by impersonal ones, replacement of family connections by political affiliation and contract, and increased reflective and systematic thought. Redfield was mainly concerned about the role of the moral order in transforming the folk society and the role of the individual in changing this moral order. Going back to the preurbanized folk society and tracing changing ethical judgments through to the present, he found that even the earliest evidence suggested that moral behavior was strongly sanctioned and that at no time did man in his history behave selfishly without restraint. Historically speaking, the major transformations of the primitive world have involved an increase and widening of humane standards. But from the start, the nexus for holding human groups together, no matter how primitive or civilized, was the moral order and the ideas on which it is based. Redfield's views provide a balance to the materialistic interpretation of culture and history by White, V. G. Childe, and others. According to Redfield, "it is not enough to say that the technical order is destroyer of the moral order, it is not enough to identify civilization with development in the technical order alone. It is also to be recognized that the effects of the technical order include the creation of new moral orders…. Through civilization also people are stimulated to moral creativeness. Civilization is also ideas in history. It is new vision, fresh and bold insights, perceptions and teachings of religious and ethical truth which could not have come about had there not been the expansion of the technical order" [The Primitive World and its Transformation (New York 1953) 77].

This implies that standards of evaluation can be applied to different societies, and in this Redfield agreed with Kroeber, who suggested some indices to measure progress, viz, the decline of magic and superstition; the "decline of infantile obsession with the outstanding physiological events in human life"; and finally technology, mechanics, and science, which show most clearly the cumulative effect in culture. But Redfield pointed out that, even in evaluating the development of mankind, judgments among social scientists have changed as well. The relativism that was characteristic of much of the social science of the first half of the 20th century, in which all cultures were considered to be equally valid, has given way to a critical reappraisal of the development of mankind as a whole. Although the canons of social science involve nonjudgmental statements, contemporary evaluations of societies lay special stress on the degree to which these societies achieve their own goals and aspirations.

Historical Explanations. Historical explanations of the growth of culture may be said to have been particularistic because they avoided broad generalizations and emphasized description and the uniqueness of cultural systems and events in any historical period. Many of the cultural studies of the early 20th century were reactions to the unilinear explanations that were criticized as impressionistic and premature.

American Historical School. The German-born anthropologist Franz Boas reacted strongly against the evolutionary trend in theory, and his opinions influenced social science for at least a generation. In his attack on the comparative method (identified with evolutionism), he pointed out that similarities between cultural traits did not necessarily prove historical connections and common origins. Instead he called for a detailed study of customs in particular cultures in relation to the natural environment and the neighboring cultural and social groups. Through minute studies of this sort the historical causes of the formation of individual customs or whole cultures could be ascertained. Such detailed studies would also illumine the psychological processes contributing to the development of culture. In this view the growth of culture results from the creative abilities of the members of a society and from borrowing from neighboring cultures. This so-called American historical school thus proceeded pragmatically and showed the fallacy of other broad generalizations, especially those of the racial, geographic, and economic determinists.

Boas and his students made important contributions to the study of cultural processes and encouraged many field studies of Native Americans. But they also initiated a trend toward reification of cultural traits; that is, traits were taken out of their context and handled statistically. Culture then became an object sui generis that frequently was unrelated to the individuals who manifested it. The active element was culture; the individual was passive. In this extreme form, cultural determinism was, however, somewhat limited. The approach nevertheless imposed critical rules for historical reconstruction; isolated principles of order, especially those pertaining to time and space distributions and to the recognition of cultural patterning; traced concrete events of diffusion and invention when possible; and presented the broad unity of the biocultural potential of all mankind.

Many anthropologists used the framework of the culture area. In the absence of written histories they borrowed the age-area hypotheses from the biologists when they needed a device for introducing a time dimension into their distributional studies. The implication of the hypothesis is that the traits most widely distributed in an area also have the greatest antiquity. But such traits and complexes as Buddhism, though widely distributed in Asia, do not represent the oldest religious forms. Although this hypothesis has proved valuable in areas where cultures have been diffused at a slow pace and by word of mouth, it is not valid in other culture areas.

Cyclical Theories. Among culture historians another trend is in evidence. Impressed by the rise and decline of specific civilizations, they have developed analogies with the human life cycle. Unlike the evolutionists, who postulated the inevitability of progress and perfection, these theorists postulated the inevitability of the cycle. Oswald spengler's Der Untergang des Abenlandes (2 v. Munich 1919–22) was perhaps the most influential of works of its kind, although in modified form others less pessimistic also dwelt on the apparent cyclical nature of historical events. Spengler maintained that the West, which had created industrial society, was losing to the awakening Orient, a view that received some support from events after World War I. The difficulty with this and other cyclical interpretations of history is the tendency to focus principally on political and military domination as criteria of ascendancy. Historians such as A. J. Toynbee [A Study of History, 12 v. (London 1948–61)], although considerably more moderate, hold to the idea that cultures rise and grow in response to a challenge. The manner in which Toynbee has selected his data to support his thesis has brought doubt upon his formulations. Furthermore, it is not clear that he has unambiguously identified and connected challenges with responses, a task of doubtful validity in any case. For the investigator who is dependent on documentary evidence, incomplete as it is, this becomes an extremely difficult undertaking.

Diffusionism. Although the American approach was concerned with diffusion, it was limited in scope. Studies of actual diffusion were confined to local and regional reconstructions, the interrelations of tribal and cultural areas, and the distribution of cultural elements over larger or smaller segments of the world. The focal interest was in relationships among cultures in the New World and the development of New World cultures in relative isolation from those of the Old World.

Extreme diffusionism had its sources in England and on the Continent. In England, E. G. Smith, for example, held that all cultures were ultimately traceable to one center, the valley of the Nile, and that after a technological spurt with concomitant cultural development, the culture had spread to the Mediterranean and hence to the rest of the world [The Migrants of Early Culture (Manchester 1915)]. The basic assumption underlying this approach is man's basic uninventiveness. Trade and other forms of travel and communication are considered to be the only means by which culture can develop and spread. This was supposed to have taken place all across Asia and even to Middle America via the Pacific Ocean. This approach discounted the formidable obstacles of oceans and land and magnified superficial similarities of form to the exclusion of function and meaning (e.g., in comparing Mayan and Egyptian pyramids). Furthermore, there is no evidence in intervening areas of any movement of either people or cultural traits from the postulated Egyptian center. The theory was not accepted in England, on the Continent, or in America.

A more scholarly and scientific approach to the spread of culture took the form of the German-Austrian Kulturkreis Theory that emanated from the Vienna school of Wilhelm schmidt, SVD. In spite of the tremendous scholarly effort of the followers of this approach, it was eventually considered inadequate, at least as a unified theoretical approach, even by its former proponents.

Culture Change

Older views in the study of culture change tended to focus on cultural elements themselves. The emphasis has shifted to the study of the changing relationships between elements; change between groups of individuals, sharing a common or different culture; change between segments of a society; and adjustments of individual personalities to their changing culture (see Wolf, 53–86, for a partial review of changes in anthropological thinking after World War II).

Culture change is viewed in terms of the modification of the cultural system and subsystems, not merely as the addition, loss, or modification of cultural elements. Processes of culture change are only now being classified and involve such ideas as integration, adaptation, and isolation—all operating on social, cultural, and psychological levels. There is currently no unified theory of culture change, but many hypotheses and propositions have been put forward to explain the large body of empirical observations.

Bibliography: d. bidney, Theoretical Anthropology (New York 1953). f. boas, The Mind of Primitive Man (New York 1938); Race, Language and Culture (New York 1940). r. j. braidwood and g. r. willey, eds., Courses toward Urban Life (Chicago 1962). t. g. harding et al., Evolution and Culture, ed. m. d. sahlins and e. r. service (Ann Arbor, Michigan 1960). m. j. herskovits, Man and His Works: the Science of Cultural Anthropology (New York 1949). j. j. honigmann, Culture and Personality (New York 1954). a. l. kroeber, Anthropology (new ed. New York 1948); Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America (Berkeley 1954); ed., Anthropology Today (Chicago 1953). a. l. kroeber and c. kluckhohn, Culture: a Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1952; repr. pa. New York 1963). r. linton, The Study of Man (New York 1936); ed., The Science of Man in the World Crisis (New York 1945). b. malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture, and Other Essays (Chapel Hill, North Carolina 1944). w. e. moore, Social Change (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1963). a. r. radcliffe-brown, A Natural Science of Society (New York 1957). r. redfield, The Little Community: Viewpoints for the Study of a Human Whole (Chicago 1955); Peasant Society and Culture: An Anthropological Approach to Civilization (Chicago 1956). n.j. and w. t. smelser, Personality and Social Systems (New York 1963). j. h. steward, Theory of Cultural Change (Urbana, Illinois 1955). a. f. c. wallace, Culture and Personality (pa. New York 1961). l. a. white, The Science of Culture (New York 1949). e. r. wolf, Anthropology (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1964).

[g. o. lang]