Culture is the knowledge and way of life of a particular group of people. Culture encompasses a society's language, religion, social characteristics, music, and arts. Naturally, humans are social creatures; they tend to group themselves into communities for the sole purpose of survival. In these communities, people develop identical patterns of behaviors. A society's cultural norms are transmitted through some specific existing systems (Griswold, 2012). The systems are the government, education, and family. The government plays a significant role in setting forth a set of beliefs. The school and the family then play their part by educating the community on the beliefs and the behaviors that support them. The set beliefs are commonly referred to as values. Furthermore, the actions that complement the set values are known as norms.
Socialization is a process by which individuals gain insights into a particular community's values and norms (Baltes et al., 2013). Socialization entails socializing, which is socially interacting with family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Socialization is a gradual and adaptive learning experience due to the continually changing state of society and people's involvement in new affairs that entail new norms and values. Social interactions play a significant role in providing people with ways to understand themselves better and fit into the larger world.
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The looking glass self is a psychosocial theory developed by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 (Baltes et al., 2013). According to this theory, an individual develops due to society's interpersonal interactions and others' apprehensions. In this case, what shapes an individual's identity are other people's perspectives on them. The three main parts of the looking-glass self-theory are; how people imagine how they need to appear to others, how people imagine the nature of the judgment of that appearance, and how people develop themselves out of other people's judgments.
According to Mead's theory of self-formation, the self arises from the social act of communicating with other people, which forms the basis for socialization (Baltes et al., 2013). Mead's theory of self got significantly shaped by his general socialization perspective as a gradual and lifelong process. According to Mead, the process of self-formation does happen in three stages. The first stage is imitation, where children tend to emulate grown-ups' behaviors without a proper understanding of it. The second is the play stage, where a child ay mimics being a teacher, policemen, or doctor. The response in this stage is not coherent. Therefore, a child conceptualizes the attitudes of the iconic people to them by emulating their roles. The third stage is the gaming level, where the child learns to respond to others appropriately. The gaming stage is where the child gains social identity.
Ethnocentrism is the act of people evaluating other cultural norms according to the standards of their own culture. Cultural relativism is the act of assessing a particular culture by its standards without comparing it to another culture. In ethnocentrism, people believe that their culture is far superior to that of others. The idea can lead people to dislike other cultures, causing significant misunderstanding or even conflicts (Griswold, 2012). On the other hand, cultural relativism requires an individual to view different cultural norms open-minded and embrace the will to adapt to the new norms. However, cultural relativism may lead to people adopting everything that a new culture offers, which is quite impossible. Both cultural relativism and ethnocentrism impact the development of an ideal society distinctly. For instance, cultural relativism can depict a mistaken notion that there are no particular objective standards by which a community can be evaluated because each society has an entitlement to its own beliefs and norms. The nature of thinking embedded in ethnocentrism views culture as something backward, evil, and completely absurd.
According to sociologist Charles Cooley, people develop a sense of self by critically observing how other people perceive them. On the other hand, Herbert Mead argues that the key to self-development is emulating other people's roles. A sense of self primarily develops through socializing, where people conceptualize others' experiences and expectations (Griswold, 2012). The genetic components impact people's development by influencing their social behavior and characteristics through their brain structure, physiology, and development. However, the interrelationship between genes and social interactions do change with engagement to new experiences.
Culture affects human interactions by determining how people communicate with each other and behavior patterns within a given group (Griswold, 2012). In social interactions, culture promotes improved learning, increased human tolerance, and opportunities for togetherness. Furthermore, it promotes the quality of livelihood and the general well-being of the community members. People can change culture through diffusion, where cultural ideas get transferred from one culture to the other.
Subcultures and countercultures are small cultural groups distinct from the dominant cultural structure (Madfis et al., 2020). Subcultures split away from the dominant culture to develop their unique norms while simultaneously recognizing the primary culture. The types of subcultures within an ideal society include; criminal, conflict, and retreat subcultures. On the other hand, a counterculture comes into existence when both the subculture and the dominant culture engage in an irreconcilable conflict (Madfis et al., 2020). The types of countercultures present in an ideal society include; political, cultural, and a blend of the two countercultures. Countercultures fight back; by all means, the cultural hegemony inhibiting the legitimacy of their presence as contributing members of the society. Religion, occupation, financial status, sexuality, geographical locations are some of the elements that define a subculture.
References
Baltes, P. B., & Schaie, K. W. (Eds.). (, 2013). Life-span developmental psychology: Personality and socialization . Elsevier.
Griswold, W. (2012). Cultures and societies in a changing world . Sage.
Madfis, E., & Vysotsky, S. (2020). Exploring Subcultural Trajectories: Racist Skinhead Disengagement, Desistance, and Countercultural Value Persistence. Sociological Focus , 53 (3), 221-235.
