64CHAPTER 3 Culture FIGURE 3.2 | THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A NATION'S WEALTH AND THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO ITS PEOPLE Religion is important, percent 100 80 60 40 20 0 Indonesia Egypt South Africa Bulgaria Hungary Greece Spain Australia Japan Britain 0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 Gross national income per capita, purchasing power parity Poorer countries tend to be more religious than wealthier countries. The United States is an exception to this trend, however. Although it is a very wealthy nation, it is far more religious than its comparative wealth would suggest. In a Pew survey, 78 percent of U.S. respondents said religion was “very” or “somewhat” important to them, far higher than in the other wealthy countries in the survey but lower than in many poorer countries. Sources: Survey data are most recent for each country from the Pew Global Attitudes Project (2013) database. Gross national income (GNI) purchasing power parity (PPP) data are for 2012 from the World Bank database (2013). (GNI per capita is the total value of goods and services produced within a country, plus the balance of income received from, or payments made to, other countries, divided by the population. PPP adjusts this value for the actual price of goods and services in different countries.) KNOWLEDGE: HOW DO I GET THINGS DONE? In the context of culture, knowledge is the range of information, awareness, and understanding that helps us navigate our world. Sociologists sometimes refer to such knowledge as cultural capital, an idea we explore in more detail in Chapter 9, where we consider class-based cultures. People often take for granted the knowledge they have internalized about their own culture. They learn how to speak, read, and write the language; how to dress appropriately for work; and how to behave properly in different situations. To navigate U.S. culture, for example, you have very likely learned how to read a map, how to use a credit card, how to apply to college, how to select items and pay for them in a supermarket, how to practice safe sex, and how to drive a car. In short, you have learned about the sorts of behavior that are rewarded and necessary for success in this culture. Culture shock is the experience of being disoriented because of a lack of knowledge about an unfamiliar social situation. You are most likely to experience culture shock when you are traveling outside your own country, as John Wray did in the Shuar community in our opening example. In describing a research trip to Kenya, Rachel Irwin (2007) told of her anxiety about riding in a matatus—a minibus typically fi lled well beyond capacity with people and sometimes goats, driving at Belief in a god and concern for religion are widespread but more so in some societies than in others. In general, the importance of religion in a culture declines as people become more educated and affl uent. As Figure 3.2 shows, however, there is one major exception to this trend: the United States. In a survey of people in 23 countries, 78 percent of people in the United States said religion was “important” in their lives, about double the fi gure for Britain (38 percent) and France (37 percent), and triple the number for Sweden (25 percent) (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2013). Such a relatively high level of religiosity helps explain why debates about abortion, stem cell research, teaching evolution, and gay rights are often more vocal and intense in the United States than in many other industrialized societies. A higher percentage of people in the United States tend to believe in God than in other developed countries, and these religious beliefs infl uence political debates. In poor countries, though, religion plays an even more important role in people’s lives than it does in the United States. An overwhelming percentage of respondents said religion was “important” in their lives in countries such as Bangladesh (100 percent), Tanzania (99 percent), Philippines (99 percent), and Pakistan (99 percent). Beliefs about God and the importance of religion are central to the culture of these societies. Netherlands Sweden Czech Rep. S. Korea France U.S. Bangladesh Philippines Ethiopia India Malaysia Peru Brazil Lebanon Turkey Canada Uzbekistan Israel Italy Poland Chile Mexico Ukraine Russia Lithuania Slovakia Germany Tunisia Pakistan Argentina
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