Culture: Sociology and Body Language Patterns Essay

Submitted By Johncass
Words: 338
Pages: 2

Culture is responsible for the way our society works. As a child we learn our culture through socialisation, this can be from a number of institutions such as school, family members, peers, education and media. Socialisation is a process of learning the values and norms of our society and is a lifelong process; our culture is a way of life and is a collection of ideas and habits which are handed down from generation to generation. Culture affects a lot of human behaviour and choice and is responsible for our behaviours, food and diet choice, body language patterns and personal space which we use when communicating with others. There are lots of underlying aspects to culture which we are less aware of such as what motivates people, role expectations, manners etc. The norms and values of cultures also differ i.e. there are individualistic cultures (UK and USA) who value personal gain and achievement and collectivist cultures (china and Asia) who value achievement as a group and strive for group harmony. Norms are something that in one culture could be considered as a normal thing to do but in another could be offensive/taboo i.e. in china people will ask their colleagues how much they earn and talk freely about salaries; however in the UK this would be seen as rude. Norms are rules and expectations by which a society guides the behaviours of its members. Instinct is the same for all people all over the world, this is not behaviour controlled by society, but biology i.e.