The Influence of Culture on Human Behavior
The human behavior is influenced by culture according to the chapter. The social experience of a personal and genetic background is part of culture. In culture, the social interactions are managed by family, group, social class, language, and religion. Religion plays a major role in influencing people in American society, for example, by teaching ideals like integrity. This is why all ways of cheating are taken seriously. An outsider in American culture will battle to live up to society's expectations, as different places have different cultural traditions, thereby creating individuals with different behavior.
Group Behavior and Social Interactions
According to the chapter, group behavior exists since people love to associate themselves with those who they share some commonalities such as belief, occupations, and interest. The behavior of members of the same group is greatly predictable. Groups are a tool of discrimination since they exclude some people out of a particular activity. Members of certain groups such as political parties in the United States are predictable in making decisions on different matters. As an outsider in American culture one will not be able to predict the behavior of individual groups.
Social Change
Some of the major drivers of change in society include technology and political traditions. Each generation learns the existing cultural forms of achieving different tasks such as the production of food, conflict resolution, and education to the young. Some political traditions such as slavery, drug abuse, racism, and poverty still have not been addressed hence call for social change since they significantly influence American economy. Issues like racism majorly focused on African-Americans in the United States have been areas of concern in the recent years as racial profiling and shooting of the black Americans led to demonstrations which threatened the peace of American society.
Social Trade-offs
The primary focus of this concept is that one has to lose something so that he or she gets another which is needed. The idea is relevant in the American society. If the government invests heavily in the health sector through offering medical insurance such as the Obama care, other services such as security may be affected since revenue is constant. This idea cuts through all culture hence does not discriminate whether one is an outsider or not.
Political and Economic Systems
Politics enable the creation of government through the election, appointment who acquisition through the armed forces. The governments determine the way a country should be run including the economic systems to be adopted. Whether capitalist or socialist economic systems are taken, it decision which greatly influences the human society. This idea is relevant in the American society since the government partially adopted both capitalist and socialist economies. The US government despite being capitalistic it selectively intervenes in the free market. In other parts of the world economic systems are changing as well.
Social Conflict
Conflicts exist in human societies due to competition for resources, power, and status. Social change can also be a cause for social conflict. Social conflict is relevant in American society. The African Americans have in the past felt humiliated because of police shootings leading to the demonstration with a common slogan “Black lives matter.” Social conflicts are also evident in other societies in different perspectives.
Global Interdependence
Global interdependence is a tendency of nations and cultures depending on one another through the economic system and shared problems. For instance, the US shares common problems such as nuclear warfare with other countries globally. It is because of this reason that the government has been against the production of nuclear weapons by some countries such as North Korea.
