Summary
Highlights
Misha Minkoff, a professor of cultural anthropology, introduces his presentation on culture and cultural differences. He outlines the topics to be covered: the significance of studying culture, various definitions of culture, and major models of national culture, along with their implications.
Minkoff uses an image of the ambassador of Papua New Guinea to the United Nations, dressed in traditional attire, to illustrate cultural peculiarity. He explains that while this attire might shock some, it's a deliberate act to reassert cultural identity, emphasizing the need to understand and respect diverse cultural expressions. This example also serves to explain how the study of culture began, with early European and American scientists encountering unexplained cultural differences in other parts of the world.
Early anthropologists perceived culture as a combination of symbols and meanings, akin to a language. Just as one learns a foreign language, understanding a new culture involves deciphering its unique meanings. Examples like a wink or wearing black demonstrate how meanings can vary drastically across cultures.
The onion metaphor is used to explain culture's different layers. The visible outer layer includes observable behaviors and customs, like driving habits. The invisible core, however, consists of values, beliefs, and attitudes. To truly understand surface behaviors, one must delve into these deeper, unseen aspects, which Minkoff likens to the 'software of the mind' as opposed to the visible 'hardware'.
Minkoff clarifies that while 'culture' in many European languages often refers to arts and historical artifacts, in anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, and management, it encompasses behaviors, rituals, symbols, and crucially, the underlying values, beliefs, and attitudes that drive these external manifestations. These invisible elements at the core are critical for understanding human behavior.