© Chris Rennie/Getty Images © Judy Bellah/Getty Images In Guatemala, Tanzania, and around the world, material culture varies across time and place. Did You Know? . . . Marc Platt, producer of the Broadway play Wicked and numerous movies, including Legally Blonde, Rachel Getting Married, Drive, and Ricki . . . Marc Platt, producer of the Broadway play Wicked and numerous movies, including Legally and the Blonde,Flash, Rachel was a sociology Getting Married,major. Drive, and Ricki and the Flash, was a sociology major. Photo: © AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle primarily by the social and psychological influences of others around us (especially parents); human nature is malleable, and we become who we are in the contexts of the societies we create. Over time most researchers have realized that this either-or argument is inadequate or misleading, because the relationship between the two forces is more fluid, better represented by shades of gray. Sociological research reveals significant cross cultural and cross-time variation in how we think and act. For example, in the 19th century it was thought that, biologically speaking, women were not capable of success in college because their brains were too small and their reproductive organs made them too emotional. Over time we learned that such presuppositions are false—women now make up almost 60 percent of college graduates—but at one time these assertions were accepted as “ natural” and therefore resistant to change. Similar biologically based claims have been used in the past to justify inequality (claims that were later revealed to be scientifically untrue), leading many sociologists to question biological explanations for human behavior (Lucal 2010). One of the lessons we learn about culture throughout human history is that variety and change are the norm. More recently, researchers in both the natural sciences and sociology have sought a nuanced understanding of the relationship between biology and culture. In the scientific community there has been growing support for gene-culture coevolution, in which each shapes the other through the course of human development. From this perspective, how individuals turn out isn’t simply a matter of whether they inherited a set of “bad genes” or “good genes.” Instead, researchers argue that an interdependent relationship exists between genes and environment. How genes are expressed (whether or not they are triggered, in other words) can depend on our natural, social, and cultural contexts. From this perspective, genes are responsive to the social context and do not inevitably trigger predetermined responses Chapter 3 / Culture • 47 nurture. According to the “nature” argument, the genes we inherit determine our outcomes, as if our fates were programmed by computer code over which we have limited control. Sociobiology is a discipline dedicated to the systematic study of how biology affects human social behavior. On the other side, “nurture” means that our destiny is shaped sociobiology The systematic study of how biology affects human social behavior.
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