Ideal and Real Culture

This article will focus on ideal and real culture. Cultures around the world experience a discrepancy between the ideals a culture upholds and the realities of life within the culture. Sociologists recognize this discrepancy to be a location of cultural dissonance, negotiation, and tension. Sociologists study and compare the ideal and real cultural aspects of societies. Understanding conceptual categories of ideal and real culture is vital background for all those interested in the sociology of culture. This article explores ideal and real culture in four parts: an overview of the ideal and real culture model; a description of the history of Max Weber's ideal type concept; an exploration of the ways in which sociologists apply the concepts of ideal and real culture to their study of different cultures as a means of gathering information about cultural values and cultural norms; and a discussion of the issues related to cultural dissonance caused by gaps between ideal and real culture.

Keywords Cultural Dissonance; Culture; Ideal Culture; Ideal Type; Immaterial Culture; Mores; Norms; Real Culture; Society; Sociology; Values; Weber, Max

Ideal & Real Culture

Overview

Cultures around the world experience a discrepancy between the ideals they uphold and the realities of life within them. Sociologists recognize this discrepancy to be a location of cultural dissonance, negotiation, and tension, and thus compare the ideal and real cultural aspects of societies. An understanding of the conceptual categories of ideal and real culture is vital for all those interested in the sociology of culture. This article explores ideal and real culture in four parts: an overview of the basic principles of the ideal and real culture model; a description of the history of Max Weber's ideal type concept; an exploration of the ways in which sociologists apply the concepts of ideal and real culture to gather information about different cultures' values and norms; and a discussion of the issues related to cultural dissonance caused by the gaps between ideal and real culture.

Basic Principles of Ideal & Real Culture

Ideal culture and real culture are concepts used by social scientists to study and compare the discrepancies between the values expressed by a culture and the behaviors exhibited by members of that culture. Sociologists define culture as the set of customs, attitudes, values, and beliefs that characterize one group of people and distinguish them from other groups. Culture also includes the products of a group of people. Culture is passed from one generation to the next through immaterial culture, such as values, norms, language, rituals, and symbols, and material culture, such as objects, art, and institutions. Ideal culture refers to the shared values that are accepted and expressed by a culture or its public norms and values. These are the values and norms the culture believes to be worth emulating. Real culture refers to the actions, behaviors, and practices of those who reside within the culture - in other words, the norms and values seen enacted by the members of society on a daily basis.

For example, American culture celebrates academic success and achievement, but in practice the majority of students in American school systems do not achieve academic honors. Similarly, American culture upholds the ideal of equal civil rights for all regardless of race, sex, language or religion. However, in practice, the majority of states ban same-sex marriages, and language barriers limit opportunities for cultural participation. Identity-based discrimination, bias, and profiling also occur throughout American society in public and private areas of life. The discrepancy, or gap, between ideal and real culture often leads to a state of cultural dissonance for members of a society. Eventually, this state may lead to political, social, or personal action directed at reconciling or addressing the differences between ideal and real culture (Dodson, 2001).

Cultural values refer to intangible qualities or beliefs accepted and endorsed by a given society. They are distinct from attitudes, traits, norms, and needs in that they tend to be unobservable, are easily confused with other social and psychological phenomena, and generally have historical and cultural variability. They express an idealized state of being, and can influence both individual and group behavior and action. Sociologists studying the mechanisms through which values inspire, motivate, and influence action in and by society have found that values must be activated in individual and group consciousness to effect action. Values, once activated, lead toward the privileging of certain actions over others. They impudence attention, perception, and interpretation within situations and ultimately impudence how individual and group actions are planned. Sociologists studying how individuals learn values currently speculate that an individual's values, which are shaped during late adolescence, tend to be stable across the life course (Hilting & Piliavin, 2004).

Norms refer to the conditions for social relations between groups and individuals, for the structure of society and the differences between societies, and for human behavior in general. Norms are the shared rules, customs, and guidelines that govern society and define how people should behave in the company of others. They may be applicable to all members of society or to only certain subsets of the population, such as students, teachers, clergy, police officers, or soldiers in warfare (Opp, 1979). Sociologists divide norms into four types: folkways, mores, taboos, and laws. These four types of norms are ranked from least restrictive to most compulsory. Folkways refer to norms that protect common conventions. Mores refer to stronger norms with associated moral values. Taboos refer to the strongest types of mores. Laws refer to the mores that are formally enforced by a political authority and backed by the power of the state. Ultimately, social norms are important, in part because they enable individuals to agree on a shared interpretation of a social situation and prevent harmful social interactions (Kiesler, 1967).

The History of Ideal Culture Concept

The concept of ideal culture is based on sociologist Max Weber's concept of the ideal type. Weber's ideal type, also referred to as a pure type, is one of the most influential conceptual tools in 20th century social science (Hekman, 1983). It refers to the idea of a phenomenon or a given situation. Weber considered an ideal type to be a conceptual construct, a mental picture, a mental construct, and a unified analytical construct. The ideal type has a conceptual purity and cannot, according to Weber, be found anywhere in reality or practice. The ideal type is a utopia rather than a historical or true reality. Social science researchers use the ideal type as a yardstick of sorts with which to compare real situations and behaviors. The ideal type is a heuristic device used to explore and define cultural meaning (Islam, n.d.).

Weber developed four categories of ideal types:

• Zweckrational behavior is characterized by the use of rational means to achieve rational ends.

• Wertrational behavior is characterized by the use of rational means to achieve irrational ends.

• Affektual behavior is guided by emotion.

• Traditional behavior is guided by habit.

There are two main problems with ideal types. First, the ideal type concept does not specify any criteria for deciding which features of a culture should be included as an ideal type. The concept of the ideal type, an abstraction or construct, is distinct from a stipulation or exact requirement. Second, the ideal type concept does not explain how ideal types are abstracted from the vast body of cultural values and norms (Hopfl, 2006).

Max Weber developed the ideal type concept to help social scientists study cultural, social, economic phenomena. A leader in social theory, he was a proponent of the interpretive method of sociological study, which studies the meanings people attach to their social environments and daily lives. Weber was concerned with the "problem of meaning" and worked to understand how actors, or individuals in society, created meaning for themselves and others.

During 19th century Germany, Weber's country of birth, the government underwent extreme socio-political change as its separate states coalesced into a unified nation state. The political turmoil, combined with the urbanization, reform, and industrialization that spread across Europe, made Germany rich ground for sociological investigation and analysis. Weber, for instance, studied authority and power in German organizations as a means of understanding the social tensions he saw around him.

Weber's theory of the ideal type is illustrated in his study of organizational bureaucracy, which established a set of rules that defined both how an organization should function and who should be a part of the organization. Weber's ideal bureaucracy was an organization characterized by hierarchy of authority, impersonality, written rules of conduct, promotion based on achievement, specialized division of labor, and efficiency. He also warned his country that the owners and heads of bureaucratic organizations, who were largely self-appointed leaders with great social, political, and economic power, could and would control the quality of life of their workers.

Ultimately, Weber developed the ideal type as a tool for social scientists to comprehend and investigate reality. The ideal type identifies specific features, many of which, however, are absent in actual cases. The ideal type is a general purified category that rarely represents any actually existing case or situation; however, the perfection and purity of the ideal type is useful for defining the concept. While reality is muddied and complicated, ideal types are clear, distinct, and intelligible. Ideal types allow cultures to define and understand themselves. Throughout the 20th century, the field of sociology further developed Weber's concept of the ideal type. The ideal type became a starting point from which sociologists went on to study the tension, gap, disparity, or dissonance between ideal and real culture.

Applications

Sociologists apply the concepts of ideal and real culture to gather information about different cultures' values and norms. Comparisons between ideal cultural values and actual behavior can yield information about the limits of ideal culture on influencing and directing behavior.

The disparity between cultural values and norms, as expressed, for example, in laws, media and actual behavior, is the difference that exists between the ideal culture and the real culture. Ideal cultural patterns are found across cultures. They are commonly associated with questions like the welfare of the whole society, the maintenance of control by a ruling group, and the interaction of individuals of different status positions within a society. Ideal cultural patterns differ from real culture and may be related to the culture's mentality. For example, an introspective and analytical culture may have a smaller gap between ideal and real culture than a non-analytical or self-aware society (Montague, 1950).

Examples of the disparity or gap between ideal and real culture are found throughout cultures. Sociologists have found 10 ideal cultural values shared by 70 cultures spread throughout the world. These ten values include:

• Hedonism

• Power

• Achievement

• Stimulation

• Self-direction

Cultures differ in the extent to which their real cultures reflect these ideals. For example, core modern U.S. values, as expressed in the country's laws and popular cultures, include:

• Achievement

• Success

• Independence

• Freedom

• Democracy

• Scientific discovery

• Progress

• Comfort

• Education

However, real American culture ebbs and flows in its ability to achieve these ideals.

Sociologists have identified another example of a gap between ideal and real culture in South Africa. Researchers found that the high rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission in South Africa was due in part to the disparity between the country's ideal culture of trust and its real culture of infidelity. The study, which was designed to investigate the vulnerability of women to HIV infection, concluded that a clash between real and ideal culture negatively impacts condom use in the country. South Africa's ideal culture of trust resulted too often in non-condom use and placed individuals at risk for contracting HIV. Thus condom use was found to be motivated by ideal rather than real culture (Ackerman & de Klerk, 2003).

On the other hand, researchers studying Puerto Ricans with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) have found that within Puerto Rican society real rather than ideal culture guides how individuals with HIV and AIDS are treated. For example, researchers found that the ideal Puerto Rican cultural characteristics of nurturance, support, and caring clashes with caregiver feelings of fear, stigma, and anger. Ultimately, the gap or dissonance between ideal and real Puerto Rican culture negatively impacts the helping process. Due to the gap in ideal and real Puerto Rican culture, and its negative effect on health and social support, researchers recommend that Puerto Rican individuals with HIV and AIDS receive support from a multicultural team of helpers (Bok & Morales, 1992).

In addition to the study of ideal and real culture, sociologists employ five other distinct approaches to the study of culture:

• The organizational approach,

• The social-systemic approach,

• The culture-critical movement,

• The sociological phenomenology and

• The semiotic approach.

Each approach offers distinct conceptions of culture. In the organizational approach, sociologists study the impact that the social relations of production, distribution, and consumption have on culture. In the social-systemic approach, sociologists study the exchanges between culture as a whole and society as a whole. In the culture-critical movement approach, sociologists study a culture as a whole entity. In the sociological phenomenology approach, sociologists study the subjective meanings that the researcher or interpreter attributes to cultural elements, objects, and acts. In the semiotic approach, sociologists study the meanings and definitions and symbolic designs and social texts within a culture (Kavolis, 1985). Despite variations in approach and focus in the sociological study of culture, cultural sociology recognizes that cultural meaning is created in the mediation of the divide between ideal and real culture.

Issues

Cultural Dissonance

Sociologists have found that the gap between ideal and real culture can lead to feelings of cultural dissonance. Cultural dissonance refers to the sense of discord, disharmony, confusion, or conflict individuals experience when there is a gap or disparity between one's own culture and a foreign culture or the ideal and real cultural values of one's own culture. This cultural dissonance may be caused by either cross-cultural contact or continued immersion within one's own culture. When a person experiences a situation that is at odds with his or her values and norms, he or she may feel dissonance, unease, anger, or confusion. The options for response are continued confusion, fight, flight, acceptance, or change of the system. Psychologists have found that increased awareness of the presence or existence of cultural dissonance, caused by the disparity between ideal and real culture, may help ease the sense of dissonance.

Sociologists who study cultural change have found that the process of cultural change often yields a gap between ideal and real culture that can result in cultural dissonance. Cultures evolve and change over time, and periods of cultural change are a fundamental characteristic of culture itself. Sociologists therefore study the phenomena of cultural change to understand which elements of culture are transient and mutable and which are fixed. For example, sociologists study the process of globalization - a complex series of economic, social, technological and political changes that result as people and companies in different and often distant countries interact with increasing frequency - to understand how cultures change in contact with one another.

If cultural change does not occur across all segments and facts of society, a gap will exist between what the culture values and how the members of a society behave. For example, sociological studies of business teams have found that gaps in ideal and real culture and cultural dissonance exist when the teams perceive themselves to be something they are not. Employees in large business environments responded to feelings of cultural dissonance by enacting inconsistent managerial decisions, misguided marketing decisions, and problematic product development. Cultures, including businesses and institutions, striving for peaceful relations may work to promote congruence between their ideal and real cultures. Congruence, the opposite of dissonance, refers to a match between personal belief systems and external systems. Greater congruence tends to lead to peaceful relations (Dodson, 2001).

Conclusion

Conceptual categories of ideal and real culture are global phenomena. Cultures around the world experience a discrepancy between the ideals they uphold and the realities of life within them. Sociologists recognize this discrepancy to be a location of cultural dissonance, negotiation, and tension.

Terms & Concepts

Cultural Dissonance: The sense of discord, disharmony, confusion, or conflict individuals experience when there is a gap or disparity between ideal and real culture.

Culture: The set of customs, attitudes, values, and beliefs that characterize one group of people and distinguish them from other groups.

Ideal Culture: A culture's idealized values and norms.

Ideal Type: Max Weber's conceptual tool for identifying a phenomenon or a given situation.

Immaterial Culture: The language, rituals, and symbols of a culture.

Mores: Strong norms with associated moral values.

Norms: Shared rules, customs, and guidelines that govern society and define how people should behave in the company of others.

Real Culture: The day-to-day behavior exhibited by members of a culture.

Society: A group of people living and interacting in a defined area, such as a country or other geographic region, and sharing a common culture.

Sociology: The scientific study of human social behavior, human association, and the results of social activities.

Values: Intangible qualities or beliefs accepted and endorsed by a given society.

Weber, Max: A German politician, historian, economist, and sociologist considered to be one of the founders of sociology.

Bibliography

Ackerman, L. & de Klerk, G. (2003). When ideal and real culture clash--trust, infidelity and condom use. Curationis, 26 , 40-3.

Bok, M. & Morales, J. (1992). Cultural dissonance and AIDS in the Puerto Rican Community. Journal of Multicultural Social Work, 2 , 13-26.

Dodson, K. (2001) The impact of cultural dissonance on corporate strategy and new product development: An ethnography of a high-tech corporate start-up. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Utah.

Drennan, S., & Van Bockern, S. (2012). Searching for Resolution in Cultural Dissonance. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 21, 23-26. Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text:http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=83719995&site=ehost-live

Guan, M., Lee, F., & Cole, E. R. (2012). Complexity of Culture: The Role of Identity and Context in Bicultural Individuals' Body Ideals. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 18, 247-257. doi:10.1O37/aO02873O Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text:http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=78097329&site=ehost-live

Höpfl, H. (2006). Post-bureaucracy and Weber's "modern" bureaucrat. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 19 , 8-21.

Hekman, S. (1983). Weber's ideal type: A contemporary reassessment. Polity, 16 , 119-137.

Hitlin, S. & Piliavin, J. (2004). Values: Reviving a dormant concept. Annual Review of Sociology, 30 , 359-393. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=13972024&site=ehost-live

Islam, N. (n.d.). From ideal type to pure type: Weber's transition from history to sociology. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from: http://www.bangladeshsociology.org/myweb21/book1/idealtype2pure.html.

Kavolis, V. (1985). Civilization analysis as a sociology of culture. Sociological Theory, 3 , 29-38. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=15148947&site=ehost-live

Kiesler, C., Kiesler, S. & Pallak, M, (1967). The effect of commitment to future interaction on reactions to norm violations. Journal of Personality, 35 , 585-599. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=8934573&site=ehost-live Lawler, M., & Nixon, E. (2011). Body Dissatisfaction Among Adolescent Boys and Girls: The Effects of Body Mass, Peer Appearance Culture and Internalization of Appearance Ideals. Journal Of Youth & Adolescence, 40, 59-71. doi:10.1007/s10964-009-9500-2 Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text:http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=56525956&site=ehost-live

Montague, J. (1950). Real and ideal culture patterns as revealed in students' responses to dichotomous questions. Journal of Educational Sociology, 24 , 167-176. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=15937101&site=ehost-live.

Morris, R. (1956). A typology of norms. American Sociological Review, 21 , 610-613. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=12789082&site=ehost-live

Munters, Q. (1972). Max Weber as rural sociologist. Sociologia Ruralis, 12 , 129-147. Retrieved April 4, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=10193035&site=ehost-live

Na, J., Choi, I., & Sul, S. (2013). I Like You Because You Think in the 'Right' Way: Culture and Ideal Thinking. Social Cognition, 31, 390-404. doi:10.1521/soco.2013.31.3.390 Retrieved October 28, 2013 from EBSCO online database SocINDEX with Full Text:http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=87950829&site=ehost-live

Opp, K. (1979). The emergence and effects of social norms. Kyklos, 32 , 775-1002. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=4462589&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Calhoun, C. (1992). Beyond the problem of meaning: Robert Wuthnow's historical sociology of culture. Theory & Society, 21 , 419-444. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=10754910&site=ehost-live

Goldfarb, J. (2005). Dialogue, culture, critique: The sociology of culture and the new sociological imagination. International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society, 18 (3/4), 281-292. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=23444652&site=ehost-live

Wolff, J. (1999). Cultural studies and the sociology of culture. Contemporary Sociology, 28 , 499-507. Retrieved June 28, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=2375535&site=ehost-live