Revolutionary Road A look at the social isolation and gender roles of 1950s America. The Invention of Lying What would society be like if we never told a lie? Dawn of the Planet of the Apes When human culture collapses and intelligent apes arise. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold Morgan Spurlock attempts to finance a movie completely with product placement. Good Hair Chris Rock’s documentary about the culture of hair in the Black community. 5 Movies on U.S. CULTURE Perhaps cheating has become a normal part of student culture even if it is at odds with dominant school values. Sometimes values shift in response to historic events. Americans have always valued their right to privacy and resented government intrusions normative culture Consists of the ways we establish, abide by, and enforce principles of conduct. Chapter 3 / Culture • 55 into their personal lives. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, many citizens called for greater protection against the threat of terrorism. In response, the federal government broadened its surveillance powers and increased its ability to monitor people’s behavior without court approval. In 2001, shortly after the attacks, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act, which empowers the FBI to access individuals’ medical, library, student, and phone records without informing them or obtaining a search warrant. NORMATIVE CULTURE Whereas cognitive culture highlights what we think or believe, normative culture, the third element of culture, focuses on how we act. Normative culture consists of the ways we establish, abide by, and enforce principles of conduct. In our everyday lives, we typically abide by norms—the established standards of behavior maintained by a society—both big and small, from “Thou shalt not kill” to “Chew with your mouth closed.” Most of the time, we do so without thinking much about it. For a norm to become significant, it must be widely shared and understood. For example, in movie theaters in the United States, we typically expect that people will be quiet while the film is shown. Of course, context matters, and the application of this norm can vary, depending on the particular film and type of audience. People who are viewing a serious artistic film will be more likely to insist on the norm of silence than those who are watching a slapstick comedy or a horror movie. Types of Norms Sociologists distinguish between norms in two ways. First, norms are classified by their relative importance to society. When presented this way, they are known as folkways and mores. Folkways are norms governing everyday behavior. They play an important role in providing general guidelines for how to act within a culture. Such norms are less rigid in their application, and their violation raises comparatively little concern. Mores (pronounced “MOR-ays”) are norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of 2013, for example, a record high 82 percent identified “being very well-off financially” as a significant value compared to 44.8 percent who selected “developing a meaningful philosophy” (Eagan et al. 2013). Researchers have also studied other family and community values among first-year students. The second-highestrated value identified by the 2013 class was “raising a family,” at 73.3 percent. This value has remained at approximately the same level for nearly 50 years (Eagan et al. 2013). Students in 2013 were also committed to “helping others who were in difficulty” (72 percent), although only 30 percent selected “participating in a community action program” as either essential or very important. The proportion that identified “helping to promote racial understanding” rose over the previous year to 35.7 percent. As these numbers demonstrate, a nation’s values are not necessarily set in stone. Because it challenges honesty as a shared value, cheating is a significant concern on college campuses. Professors who take advantage of computerized services that can identify plagiarism, such as the search engine Google or TurnItIn.com, have found that many of the papers their students hand in are plagiarized, in whole or in part. When high school students were asked about academic honesty, 32 percent admitted to copying an Internet document for a classroom assignment, 51 percent said they’d cheated during a test at school, and 74 percent had copied someone’s homework, all within the past year. At the same time, 86 percent agreed that “it’s not worth it to lie or cheat because it hurts your character” (Josephson Institute of Ethics 2012). norm An established standard of behavior maintained by a society. folkways Norms governing everyday behavior, whose violation raises comparatively little concern. mores Norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a society.
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