Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is acquired: Culture is an acquired quality or behaviour. It is not biologically inherited but learnt socially by individuals. In other words, any behaviour or quality which is socially acquired or learned is called culture. Behaviour’s learned through socialization habits and thoughts are called culture. Human beings learn or acquire culture by living in groups. He learns it from society through education.
2. Culture is social: Culture does not exist in isolation. It is a product of society. It develops through social interaction. No man can acquire culture without association with others. Man becomes a man only among men.
3. Culture is transmissive: Culture is transmissive as it is transmitted from one generation to another. Language is the main vehicle of culture. Language in different forms makes it possible for the present generation to understand the achievement of earlier generations. Transmission of culture may take place by imitation as well as by instruction.
4. Culture fulfils some needs: Culture fulfills many social psychological, moral etc. needs of individuals. Culture is created and maintained because of different needs. It fulfills the needs of both societies as well as individuals. For example, religion is used to fulfill society's solidarity and integrative needs. Our need for food, clothing, shelter, name, fame, status and position are fulfilled as per our cultural ways.
5. Culture is shared: Culture is not something that an individual alone can possess. Culture in a sociological sense is shared. For example, customs, traditions, beliefs, ideas, values, morale etc. are all shared by people of a group or society.
6. Culture is Idealistic: Culture embodies the ideas and norms of a group. It is a sum-total of a group's ideal patterns and norms of behaviour. Culture consists of the intellectual, artistic and social ideals and institutions which the members of the society profess and to which they strive to confirm.
7. Culture is accumulative: Culture is not created in one day or one year. It gradually accumulates through centuries. Beliefs, art, morals, and knowledge are gradually stored up and become part of culture. Hence culture is the social heritage.
8. Culture is adaptive: Culture possesses adaptive capacity. It is not static. It undergoes changes. Different aspects of culture adapt to new environments or challenges posed by social and physical environments. Adaptation refers to the process of adjustment. And culture helps a man in this process of adjustment.
9. Culture is Variable: Culture varies from society to society, group to group. Hence, we say culture of India or England. Further culture varies from group to group within the same society. There are subcultures within a culture. Cluster of patterns which are both related to general culture of the society and yet distinguishable from it are called subcultures.
10. Culture is organized: Culture has an order or system. As Tylor says culture is a ‘complex whole’. It means different parts of culture are well organized into a cohesive whole. Different parts of culture are organized in such a way that any change in one part brings corresponding changes in other parts.
11. Culture is communicative: Man makes and uses symbols. He also possesses capacity for symbolic communication. Culture is based on symbols and it communicates through different symbols. Common ideas and social heritage etc. are communicated from one generation to another. In Indian culture red colour symbolizes danger. Hence culture is communicative in nature.
12. Language is the chief vehicle of culture: Culture is transmitted from one generation to the next. It never remains static. This transmission became possible through language. Culture is learned through language.
13. Culture is the total social heritage: We know culture is a social product. It is linked with the past. Through transmission past continues to live in culture. It is shared by all.
Culture is everything which is socially learned and shared by the members of a society. It is culture that, in the wide focus of the world, distinguishes individual from individual, group from group and society.
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