NORMS
As already mentioned
culture is a complete whole of patterns of behaviour learnt by a society and
standardized, approved and recognized. By repeated process of trial and error
and learning, the society sets up expected patterns of behaviour. The expected
patterns of behaviour are known as norms. A cultural norm is a concept of what
is expected to exist or to take place as human behaviour. It is a set of
behavioural expectation and consists of standardized expected ways of felling
and acting. The cultural norms are generally derived from the previous
generation from the way in which things were done for the good and convenience
of the society. When culture is transferred from one generation to another, the
norms are included in it. The past generation leaves behind the norms which
regard to modes of worship, modes of eating, modes of marriage, etc. The next
generation introduces fresh changes and the norms are also changed. A social
norm is a type of social behaviour that is valued by the society as appropriate
and befitting. A departure from this accepted and valued types of behaviour is
socially condemned.
Norms are classified as folkways and mores.
Folkways are the customary habitual ways of doing things by society or
community. Folkways are norms which are generally practiced but at the same
time there is no harm experienced by anybody in the society by these habits or
customs not being observed or practiced. For example, greeting one another,
wearing a turban. Folkways are so much of a habit that people observe them very
often without even knowing the purpose. Folkways help special interaction and
give a social psychological satisfaction to individuals when they interact with
one another because they are group habits.
Mores are also norms but they are rigid norms
and are meant to be followed by individuals for a specific advantage for the
society. Mores refer to inflexible standard or ideas of right or wrong which
require certain acts to be done and forbid others. They are vitally important
to the society from an ethical and moral point of view. What is harmful to the
society like for example crime and antisocial acts are mores which are
forbidden. Charity and kind acts are mores that are encouraged because they
have a positive ethical value.
Assimilation is another term used in sociology
which denotes the process whereby a group, generally a minority or immigrant
group is through contract absorbed into the culture of another group or groups.
It amounts to the integration of one of the cultural traits into another. The
smaller group gets assimilated into the bigger group and becomes a part of it.
This is a part and parcel of the larger group ultimately with regard to its
cultural traits and patterns of behaviour, etc.
VALUE
Perception is need based. It arises out
of past experience and is directed towards future aspirations. Things that
matter to an individual or to the group get special significance. In life, we
look upon things with relative grades of importance depending on how much they
are useful to us or otherwise. At different times and in different situations
things have different meaning and significance to us. This applies to ideas,
beliefs, objects, persons, living beings and any thing in the world. Every
individual places or gives a relative worth to everything around. This worth or
preference or judgment or weight age is known as value. A value has been
defined as a belief upon which a man acts by preference. It is cognition, a
motor, and above all a deeply appropriate disposition.
Value refers not only to the importance given
by the mind to a particular thing, the formulations within the mind of the
ought and should standards which influence action. Value, therefore, has a
strong influence on all actions and behaviour of every man. Value helps
individuals and groups to make choices or alternatives for action. Value guides
human behaviour.
Values like attitudes can be expressed and put
into action. Values therefore can be elicited by questioning or by informing
from the behaviour.
As already mentioned values are not stationery
or constant change according to the need occurring at different times and
situations. Values are learnt and are very much like selective perception. A
nice book has no value to an illiterate or to an infant or to a blind person.
Value refers to material and non-material. Certain customs and religious
beliefs, superstitions, sacred sentiments, etc., have low ethical values. The
values that have advantage for the self or for the society are known as
positive value. And the value that is harmful and disadvantageous is negative
values.
Values are also used with reference to
material possessions. We think of the value of children, greater value of male
child in the Indian context. The preceptor or teacher has a high value in
almost any society. The possession of animals also connotes values. For
example, possession of elephant, cattle, fowl, pet animals, etc.
BELIEF
Beliefs like values
have an influence on behaviour and attitudes Perception also enables individual
and groups to form a certain impression or understanding about objects,
persons, events, etc. What the mind continues to think or know about a
particular thing or event or a person, etc., becomes a belief. The dictionary
meaning of belief is trust or confidence or something regarded by a person as
truth. It also refers to a firm conviction or considered opinion or faith in
the truth of religious doctines. Beliefs can be defined as a continuing
permanent perception about anything in the individual world. Belief is a social
product of individual perception as well as group experience. Each society
forms and establishes beliefs on all aspects of life. The belief can be tested
and if it proves otherwise it will have to be given up. But most of the beliefs
are so deep rooted and traditional that the society does not try to question
the validity of the belief.
Belief can be true and false. True beliefs
would have been verified at some time or the other and those beliefs coincide
with reality and can be experienced. False beliefs have no baiss and cannot be
verified but they persist in society because of the group support. It may be
appreciated that belief is a cognitive phenomenon and therefore gives rise to
subjective facts for every individual and for the groups.
. Before science could unravel many things
people used to believe in a number of phenomena which had not been tested out
or logically proved. In ancient mythology we had a belief that the lunar and
solar eclipses were due to a temporary devouring of the moon and sun by demons.
Science has later established the causation of eclipse by physics. The belief
that smallpox was due to Goddess Mariammal or Mariammal's wrath has now been
dispelled after the discovery of the smallpox virus. There are many beliefs
with regard to causation of leprosy. Such beliefs have led to different customs
in earlier generations to seek relief from such diseases. Treatment by specific
medicines was not resorted to because of the wrong beliefs prevailing
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