When discussing culture, confusion often arises due to ambiguity around what "culture" precisely denotes. To clarify, it's valuable to distinguish two distinct concepts: Cultural Schemas and Cultural Groups.
Cultural Schema
A Cultural Schema is an abstract collection of beliefs, values, preferences, and norms. It describes the conceptual blueprint of a culture, independent of any particular individuals or communities. Schemas define what a culture believes, values, and prioritizes, providing an intangible but coherent structure.
Formally:
where each b is a belief or value held within the schema.
Cultural Group
A Cultural Group refers to the concrete set of agents—individuals, communities, or populations—that instantiate or share a particular cultural schema. These groups are tangible, consisting of real people whose beliefs align sufficiently with the schema.
Formally:
where B(a) is the belief system of agent a.
Example for Clarity
Consider three agents:
Agent a1 with beliefs {x,y,z}
Agent a2 with beliefs {x,y}
Agent a3 with beliefs {x,z}
Define two cultural schemas:
Schema S1={x,y}
Schema S2={x}
Then:
Cultural group G(S1)={a1,a2}
Cultural group G(S2)={a1,a2,a3}
Relationship Between Schemas and Groups
Larger schemas (schemas with more beliefs) are more restrictive because fewer agents will meet all criteria, resulting in smaller cultural groups. Conversely, smaller schemas (fewer beliefs required) are less restrictive, allowing more agents to meet their criteria, thus forming larger cultural groups.
Formally, if Sj⊆Sk:
This inverse relationship is a crucial and elegant property of this cultural model.
Why This Matters
Differentiating between schemas and groups aids in understanding cultural evolution, transmission, and interaction. It clarifies analyses of how cultural beliefs spread, change, or decline and how groups form, merge, or split based on shared schemas.
Adopting this terminology improves clarity, precision, and usefulness when discussing the dynamics of culture.