These questions are posed in the subject: Human behavior: inherited or learned? You are to put your ideas about these questions in the discussion: "Behavior: Inherited or Learned". Additional suggestions for discussion will be found in this topic.
Shared, consensual, learned pattern of behavior. Suppose that A and B are sitting together and B is telling a story about the origin of the people that A and B consider themselves to be. This story is one that is known by all of B's generation and older. What is told to A by B is culture. Suppose also that B has thought about this story and has some different ideas about the elements of the story but B has never told this to anyone else. So long as B keeps this to herself it is not a part of the culture of the people of A and B. Culture is a) shared; b) learned. The consensual element means simply that many share it and agree to its meaning and importance.
Culture is the embodiment of the people, it is all of the things they share and do together. Language, family structure, how and when they plant, how they live out their lives, how they die, what they hold to be sacred. In fact, virtually everything the people hold in common is a part of their culture. Tools, paths, techniques for using tools, these are also part of the culture.
Norms:
Rules that govern behavior, expectations we hold for how to behave in a given situation. These rules that govern our behavior can be quite informal (rules about how we dress, stand when talking to others, how we address one another) to formalized laws. William Graham Sumner has written an interesting book about the connection among folkways, customs, mores and laws. He suggests that informal norms develop in the day to day interactions that we have with one another, especially with those with whom we interact on a regular, daily basis. These norms become expectations about how we will behave in a given situation.
For example, suppose that I fish regularly with two other people. We always meet at one person's home as early as possible. That person will drive. Over the years we have developed a 'rule' that the other two will share in the cost of the gasoline (when we stop, one of us pays). I will always bring the sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, the other none-driver always brings the beer. When we get to the river, one will look at the water, the conditions and suggest what artificial flies to use. Two of us will go up stream, the other downstream. We will always fish about a hundred feet apart and unless we ask will never enter a stretch of river the other is fishing. If one of us is very successful, s/he will go to the others and share the information -- the kind of fly, size, what kind of water and so forth. These are informal rules (folkways if you want) that we have developed over the years that make our fishing trips fun and enjoyable. They are automatic and not spoken or thought about. This is the power of 'culture,' it is there and we act with very little thought in any given situation. It is also the case that this 'culture' does not just come full-blown, it develops over time, it is learned. Once it is learned, then it become automatic, unthinking response and behavior.
values:
the general ideas we share about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, that transcend particular situations or interactions. Our values are what we see to be important as well as good/bad, right/wrong and so forth.
To return to my fishing example above, all of us think that fly fishing is good (bait is tolerated), sharing places and experiences is good, releasing the fish is important. These are the values that make our fishing expeditions enjoyable to us. We do not compete (only a little and we lie a lot about how many and how big unless the other guy saw the fish -- one of the advantages of turning them back -- there is no hard evidence). The companionship shared is desirable, it is good. Sharing is right, these are the things one should or ought to do if one is fly fishing with us.
In the community you can find many other examples of this type. Family values, moral codes, what we think about life, how we view men and women and so forth. Now a question for you: Do we all have to share all the same values? What do you think affects the kinds of values that we hold? What is the effect of the differences among us in terms of the values we have?
beliefs:
often associated with religion, those things that we hold to be true. Beliefs and values tend to blend together. Our national ideologies are also beliefs about what IS and what is correct. Note particularly our understanding of "democracy" and a "free society."
Beliefs can also help to define reality for us. Out of Africa (1937) recounts Isak Dinesen's years in Kenya. In this book Ms. Dinesen recounts how one of the people who worked on her land suddenly became very ill and was dying. This person was quite young and in very good health. However he had crossed some very powerful people in the village and they had placed a hex upon him. Because this hex is a part of the belief system of the group to which the person belonged, it was as effective as if the people placing the hex had attacked him directly (in fact they did in their belief system). For Ms. Dinesen, this was impossible, for the African it was quite possible, deadly possible. Beliefs have this power in all of our culture.
If you are a fundamental Christian perhaps you believe the world was created in 7 days and that it was created by God. Many contemporary Americans believe that people were not created, but evolved from other forms of life over a very, very long period of time. Both of these are belief systems (involving certain assumptions about what is and how things have come to be), that shape the lives of the true believers. They shape their lives by supporting their notions of what is important, what is real and how we are to behave at all times. True, most of us do not think of this all of the time, but there are times when we are reminded of our beliefs and their importance and then act accordingly. It is also the case that for most that these beliefs remain in the background, but do shape our day to day behavior.
As with values, find examples of beliefs in the community. Take a moment and note what you think to be true of parts of the city (Capitol Hill, for example), find someone who lives there or is knowledgeable of the area and talk to them about your beliefs about the area and their experiences. Then consider how your beliefs affect the way you feel and act in that neighborhood or area. Extend the thought to people who are of a different race from you -- what do you believe to be true about them? Or to people who belong to a different social class or country or ethnic group. How do your beliefs about these people and places affect the way you act toward them? Please put your thoughts about this in the discussion topic.
technology:
these are the material goods of the culture. In what we are doing the computers are the technology. Technology is often more than the tools, since it involves the techniques as well as the tools themselves. The programming languages that make all of the things we do on the computers work are techniques, the wires that link us together are tools, but how we link those wires for what purposes are techniques. Consider that 'gunpowder' was known to the Chinese for centuries ( a tool), but that it was only used to make noises at festivals. It took the Europeans to change this tool with a different set of techniques into a weapon of destruction.
behavior derived from the genetic material, this is the stuff of instinct. Nearly everyone is in agreement that very little of human behavior is instinctive. There are certainly genetically based predispositions (e.g., irritability, shyness and so on.) There is some evidence that some of what we call IQ is genetically based and inherited. However, as Sowell has shown this is quite definitely affected by environmental factors. Sowell did the analysis of IQ differences between Blacks and Whites, native born and recent immigrants in response to the controversial work of Jensen. This argument has recently (1994) been raised again by Murray and Herrnstein in a book called The Bell Curve (You may want to read the review that appeared in April 1995). This work is every bit as controversial as the work of Jensen and totally ignores the sociological work in the field. I have also located a brief summary of the thought behind this argument by Stephen J. Gould. In this essay Gould summarizes the history of the arguments and rebuts the points made by Murray and Herrnstein.
Virtually all of human behavior is learned. Speech, how we relate to one another, roles, what is important to us, our beliefs, our religion, our conception of god, of nature, of ourselves. All is learned from other humans.
Note that biological, physical factors can affect the social as Stark points out in his discussion of the onset of puberty and our changing attitudes toward sexual behavior (or more importantly the change in actual sexual behavior). Consider for example when we in this society consider a person to be an adult.
Cruising the World Wide Web the other night looking for some things that relate to this chapter I decided to search for anything on the experiments conducted by the Harlows. As Stark points out this is a widely known and cited examination of the socialization of infant monkeys. The pages I found are put together by a painter called Mark Napier (this link will take you to his home page). However, I found his 'Chicken Wire Mothers' essay and art to be quite though provoking. Take a look and let me know what you think.
I also went looking for some web pages about Washoe, the sign language using chimpanzee. I found those pages at Central Washington University's Chimpanzee Center. Visit the sight and explore what they have to say about Washoe and some of the other sign language using chimpanzees. Again, let me know what you think of these pages.
Copyright © 1996, 1997,1998, 1999,2000 by Richard H. Anderson, the Department of Sociology and the University of Colorado at Denver.
This page last revised: January 13, 2000. Please contact Richard H. Anderson (randerso@carbon.cudenver.edu) if you experience any problems or have comments about these pages.