Chapter 15

Human Commonality

and Diversity

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Culture– the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other

products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation

• Ethnicity– based on cultural heritage, nationality, race,

religion, and language

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Cross-culture studies– compare a culture with one or more other

cultures

• Ethnicity studies– the study of universal and distinctive behaviors

across ethnic groups

• Mainstream culture– a dominant set of values and expectations

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Individualism– gives priority to personal goals rather than to

group goals

• Collectivism– emphasizes values that serve the group by

subordinating personal goals to preserve group integrity, interdependence of the members,k and harmonious relationships

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Stereotyping– a generalization about a group’s characteristics

that does not consider any variation from one individual to another

• Prejudice– an unjustified, usually negative, attitude toward

an individual based on the individual’s membership in a group

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Discrimination– the enactment of prejudices to limit

opportunities to an out-group or extend privileges to an in-group

• Ethnocentrism– the tendency to favor one’s own group over

other groups

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Social identity theory– the theory that when individuals are assigned to

a group, they invariably think of the group as an in-group for them

• Racism– the belief that members of another race or

ethnic group are inferior

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Assimilation– the absorption of an ethnic minority group into

the dominant group, which often means the loss of some or all of the behavior and values of the ethnic minority group

• Pluralism– the coexistence of distinct ethnic and cultural

groups in the same society

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Culture and Ethnicity

• Improving Interethnic Relations – Superordinate goals– Intimate contact

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Gender

• Gender– the sociocultural dimension of being female or

male

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Developing GenderIdentity

• Biological influences– androgen

• the main class of male sex hormones

– Estrogen• the main class of female sex hormones

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Developing GenderIdentity

• Social influences– identification theory

• stems from Freud’s view that preschool children develop a sexual attraction to the opposite-sex parent

– social learning theory of gender• the idea that children’s gender development occurs

through observation and imitation of gender-related behavior

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Developing GenderIdentity

• Cognitive influences– cognitive developmental theory

• children’s gender typing occurs after the have developed a concept of gender

– gender schema theory• children’s attention and behavior are guided by an

internal motivation to conform to gender-based, sociocultural standards and stereotypes

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Gender Comparisons

• Physical/Biological

• Cognitive

• Socioemotional– rapport talk

• preferred by women

– report talk• preferred by men

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Gender Expectations andStereotypes

• Gender stereotypes – broad categories, exaggerated generalizations,

and/or false beliefs about females and males

• Sexism– prejudice and discrimination against an

individual because of her or his sex

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Gender Expectations andStereotypes

• Androgyny– the presence of desirable feminine and

masculine characteristics in the same individual

• Gender-role transcendence– when an individual’s competence is at issue, it

should be conceptualized on a performance basis

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Gender Expectations andStereotypes

• Women’s issues– feminist

• a person who believes that women and men should have the same rights

• Men’s issues– male role strain– males of color and while males

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Religion

• Religion– a belief system that individuals use to morally and

spiritually guide their behavior

• Intrinsic religious orientation– religious motives that lie within the person

• Extrinsic religious orientation– personal motives that lie outside the religion itself

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Developing ReligiousCommitment

• Stage 1: Intuitive-projective faith

• Stage 2: Mythical-lyrical faith

• Stage 3: Synthetic-conventional faith

• Stage 4: Individualistic-reflective faith

• Stage 5: Conjunctive faith

• Stage 6: Universalizing faith

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Varieties of ReligiousExperience

• Religious conversion– a change from having no religious beliefs to

accepting a religious system, or changing from one belief to another

• Grand paradox– people who attend church are more prejudiced

that nonchurchgoers