Culture: An action-theoretical definition

Abstract

Our reflections now lead us to look for a definition of culture. This might appear difficult. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1963) have in a very careful study analyzed the history of the concept; in the process they collected some 160 definitions given by different social scientists, quite an “embarras de richesse”. Definitions serve specific purposes: a botanist and an artist would not define a flower in similar terms. Scientific definitions prepare for (or conclude) the systematic treatment of a problem, and therefore the definition will have to be adapted to the theoretical and methodological framework applied. For an action-psychologist, the definition of culture would most likely focus on the action relevance of culture, and in this, Kroeber and Kluckhohn would even lend us some support: heir formulation of the “central idea” of culture common to “most social scientists”, reads as follows:

“Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action.” (p. 357; my emphasis).