Cultural Conditioning

Abstract

The topic discussed in this study is the extent to which the individual is conditioned by the culture in which he lives, but first it might be well to have a definition of terms. By “culture” here is meant the totality of artifacts together with the techniques requisite for their production, use and transmission, as exercised by the individual members of a society. “Artifacts” are materials which have been altered through human agency. The chief divisions of these are tools which move material things and signs which point to them. By “conditioning” here will be meant the acquisition by the individual from stimuli-producing objects of the capacity to respond (as contrasted with the definition of learning, which is acquiring from responses the capacity to respond). “Cultural conditioning,” then, is the conditioning of the individual to his culture.