WHAT ARE CULTURAL TRAITS? - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The cultural traits are the least significant and identifiable units that constitute a culture. These elements are analyzed by sociologists to determine differences, similarities and relationships within current cultures and the history of mankind.

Cultural traits have been used by anthropology as units of transmission, which concretely reflect a series of individual or group behavioral characteristics, which can be classified and grouped at different levels or scales.

Once transmitted from generation to generation, cultural traits serve as replicable units that can be modified within the cultural repertoire of individuals, through processes of recombination, loss or partial alterations over time.

Thanks to these processes, people develop traditions and customs that are generally preserved over time and help shape the identity of societies.

They also function as elements of identification between individuals who share the same beliefs and values.

All cultural traits share a single characteristic in relation to their way of transmission; this is fundamentally transmitted by behavior, using language first, followed by imitation (or a combination of both).

Cultural traits: implications of transmission

Many studies of reconstruction of history and of ethnology devoted much of their research and analysis to the efficient transmission of ideas from person to person, seeing it as a central mental phenomenon in the molding of societies.

Under this vision, a series of characteristics about cultural transmission were identified:

1- Language is essential for efficient and accurate cultural transmission. Whatever way it is.

2- What is transmitted are cultural traits, whether in ideas or objects.

3- Culture is not inherited by genetics; instead, culture is typically acquired by learning, but also by appropriation or imitation.

4- Cultural transmission can take different routes, all of which could develop similarities between social groups.

5- Cultural transmission can occur from a genetic ancestor to a genetic descendant, but it could also occur between genetically unrelated individuals.

6- The cultural transmission in time results in the accumulation of knowledge, customs, traditions, values, among others. This accumulation of elements never stops as there is no limit to the amount of ideas that a human being can have.

Types of cultural traits

Material features

Left Viking Arrow, Right Japanese Arrow

They are those that occur or exist as a result of the elaboration and manufacture of objects and artifacts by the individuals of a society that defined their culture, as well as the elements related to the spaces and resources used by people.

This includes things such as vessels, nails, writing utensils, a pipe, accessories and jewelry, clothing, documents, paintings, homes, cities, buildings, technology, means and modes of production, among others.

For example, at the technology level, students in a modern, urbanized city need to learn to use computers in order to survive in the academic setting.

In contrast, young people who are passing into adulthood in the indigenous tribes of Africa and the Amazon, need to learn to make weapons to hunt such as spears, bows and arrows.

The elaboration of these objects in these specific societies and the objects themselves, are material cultural features of the culture. Objects, especially in archeology, are studied on the basis of types of units.

The study process makes the distinction between empirical and conceptual units. The point of an arrow is an empirical unit, because it can be seen and felt.

Comparing arrows with the naked eye made by Vikings and Japanese, differences in their features can be identified, and therefore the culture to which they belonged.

But the properties of the arrowhead are measured using conceptual units, and can be descriptive or theoretical like length, weight, metal density, notch angle, color, etc.

Depending on the focus of the study, they will work with as many units as possible to identify and classify the objects within a given cultural context.

Non-material traits

Cultural geography is a branch of human geography. Source: Pixabay

It refers to the set of ideas that people of a given culture have about their own identity, as well as the different processes that a culture develops to shape the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of its members.

This includes symbols, norms, values, beliefs, traditions, actions, institutions, organizations, and most importantly, language. The latter functions as the main means of communication and transmission of all the previous features.

These traits are responsible for how the people of a culture respond and behave in front of different topics, events, problems and situations in general.

For example there are religious concepts, rituals, marriage, the way of greeting, among others.

The more a cultural trait is recognized and used by more people, the more universal it becomes. The greeting, for example with a handshake, is a universally recognized, accepted and used cultural trait, but is more identified with the Western world.

Contrary to bowing or bowing the head to salute, it is considered a cultural trait identifiable with the east of the world. But it has already become universal simply because it is recognized, accepted and used throughout the world.

A kiss on the cheek to greet is also a recognized and used feature especially in the West. A kiss on each cheek regardless of gender (and up to two on each) is also recognized but is not used by everyone, making it less universal.

In some more conservative societies kissing on the hand is still practiced as a way of greeting, but it is an ancient cultural trait that has lost validity in modernity.

However, there are current events or special occasions where it is styled, accepted or even expected. On the other hand, there are more localized types of greetings such as kissing on the mouth, even among heterosexual men.

It will not be accepted worldwide but in some parts of Europe and Russia it is an indigenous and characteristic cultural feature.

References

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