Sociology | Mercantile Law | International Law | International Relations

Sociology → Introduction → Culture → Characteristics of Culture

Culture has been generally characterized with several features. A culture is:

Adaptive
Culture has the capacity to adapt to the new social circumstances created by man. Another side of this characteristic is that human beings are adaptive to the culture. They adopt the changing culture.

Transmissive
It can be transmitted from one society to another society; similarly from one generation to another generation.

Explicit and implicit
Cultural traits can be explicit in shape of actions and can be implicit behind the actions we perform.

Shareable
A cultural trait is shareable. It can be shared by people of the same or different society.

Learnable
Man is dependent on socialization which actually teaches it culture of living in society. Culture is learnable when an individual goes to live in a different society from that of his own.

Evolved or evolving
Most of the time a culture is evolving as human beings never stop practicing new things in society. Sometimes a culture is already evolved in centuries i.e. a rich culture.

Observed and practiced
Cultural practices are established by one generation after it observes the preceding generations following them.

Dynamic
Culture is dynamic in its approach. It is forceful and adaptable. It is versatile. It is comprehensive mostly.

Variable
Culture is not same all the time. It feels change in the thoughts and expectations of people which ultimately come in their actions. This sets new practices bringing a change to the old culture. ‘sub-Culture’ is the term used to denote a small variable part of cultural practices in a major culture.

Next: Types of Culture