Reading Journal 1

Title: Anthropological puzzle: When does culture affect behavior?

Author: John Sanford

What do you Know about the topic, author or article?

There is no provided context for the article, but from personal experience, I have some ideas about when and how culture affects behavior.

What do you Want to know (in context of the writing Assignment)?

I would like to know if there are any specific studies or research on this phenomenon and the results. How does having two or multiple cultures versus one affect behavior?

What did you Learn?

I learned that culture has a variety of definitions and that one is not necessarily widely accepted. In a conference of 24 experts on culture, some even claimed that culture has little influence on behavior, or that the validity of research on culture is questionable.

Summarize the Article:

The reading discusses a few ideas presented in the "Toward a Scientific Understanding of Culture" conference. Twenty-four experts in a variety of fields involving cultural aspects gathered in an attempt to define culture in a scientific way, and its affects on behavior. Although many experts believed the theory of co-evolution, some thought that culture has little influence on behavior itself, rather than the expectations for behavior. Most experts at the conference agreed that "co-evolution, holds that culture, defined as socially learned information, plays a key role in Darwinian evolution," (Sanford). However, while one speaker rejected the idea that culture expectations for behavior actually affect how members behave, another questioned the validity of cultural research on the basis of most of it not having been repeated, and therefore it being not scientific.

Respond to and Analyze the article (consider the purpose for reading/writing):

I think that its interesting that although there seems to be an accepted definition for culture, it is contested as valid or accurate by some experts. I usually think its quite fascinating when a seemingly clear cut concept (at least in my mind) is suddenly opened up or broken down into many facets I hadn't thought of. Although, as a multi-cultural person, I feel I have contemplated culture and its affects on my own behavior quite a lot, I think its interesting deepens my understanding to see different interpretations or contradictions to what I think, which is what I think the purpose of reading this article is. I think the purpose of this article being written is to expose that although efforts have been made to consolidate the nebulous concept of culture into "clear, bounded" (Brown) terms, there is still no clear or truly "factual" definition of culture, or consensus on its affects on behavior. I think the purpose of our reading this article is to understand that the definition of culture is not a given; it can and should be questioned.