Beliefs and Attitudes

Culture is stored in individual human beings, in the form of their beliefs, attitudes, and values. There are strong similarities in the belief systems among the members of a given culture.

Beliefs are an individual's representations of the outside world. Some beliefs are seen as very likely to be true, such as "2 + 2 = 4". Others are seen as less probable, such as "All old people sit at home in rocking chairs." Beliefs serve as the storage system for the content of our past experiences, including thoughts, memories, and interpretations of events. Beliefs are shaped by the individual's culture.

Attitudes, like beliefs, are internal events and not directly observable by other people. Attitudes are emotional responses to objects, ideas, and people. Attitudes store these emotional responses in the same way that beliefs store the content of past events. People express opinions, outwardly observable verbal behavior, and engage in other behaviors, partially on the basis of their attitudes and beliefs. Attitudes and beliefs form a storage system for culture within the individual. Attitudes and beliefs are internal and are not publicly observable. I cannot know your attitudes or your beliefs directly, but I can observe what you say (your expressed opinions) and what you do (your behav­ior) and infer your attitudes and beliefs from these overt expressions.

Attitudes and beliefs indicate behavioral intentions, tendencies for a person to respond to events, ideas, and people in particular ways. When a belief is held by most members of a culture we call it a cultural belief. Culture influences the perceptions and behaviors of the individuals sharing the culture through beliefs, values, and norms. They are important building blocks of culture.

A cultural belief may rest on a common history that a people share. For example, the Navajo believe that U.S. government programs cannot be trusted. This belief stems, in part, from the Long Walk in which the U.S. Army forced 6,000 Navajo men, women, and children in 1868 to march 300 miles from their homes in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico to internment at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. More than 4,000 Navajos died. Later, in the 1930s, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs forcibly reduced the Navajo sheep pop­ulation by 20 percent in order to prevent overgrazing. This policy was bitterly opposed by the Navajo. If you were a Navajo today, would you believe that the federal government could be trusted to help you and your family?

Values

Values are what people who share a culture regard strongly as good or bad. Values have an evaluative component. They often concern desired goals, such as the Christian value of salvation, or the values of mature love, world peace, or preservation of the environment. Values also concern ways of behaving that lead to these goals, such as valuing thrift, honesty, cleanliness, or speaking and acting quietly so as not to make noise that disturbs other people.

Values are the learned (through acculturation) organization of rules for making choices and resolving conflicts, and differences in values can be an obstacle to intercultural communication. There is much debate over relative and absolute values. Values regarding money, work, and suc­cess are often based in religion. Religious values are manifested not only in dogma, but also in living patterns and outlook. Material welfare also af­fects intercultural communication.

In France, who you are is more important than what you have achieved, and what a person does is therefore none of your business. In contrast, in the United States and Australia, for example, what you have achieved—that is, demonstrated—is important.

The most difficult thing for North Americans to understand in French culture may be the different ways in which the French affirm personal bonds or adherence to a group. Social debts situate a person in a network in France; financial debts do not—money is not part of the relational system. It is said that the French will discuss everything about sex and nothing about money. A North American who borrows a car will usually return it with more gas than when he borrowed it and will feel responsible for repairing any damage, because in North American culture consideration for a per­son's car symbolizes consideration for the person. But in France, if a car is very important, then it is the owner's responsibility not to lend it. "Things happen" and it is incumbent on the owner to safeguard and not to lend something valuable.

A North American woman who lived for years in Iran recounted that on hot summer nights people put out chairs and mats on the rooftops of their homes to sit and to sleep. Every morning people would take everything back inside, because otherwise neighbors would fish for items with poles and take them. It was accepted that people should not "abandon" property in plain sight, thereby tempting their neighbors. It was the owner's responsibility to protect a valued possession by properly putting it away.

The elements of a culture, like its values, are so completely accepted by individuals sharing that culture that these elements are seldom questioned or defended.

Cultural values involve judgments (that is, they specify what is good or bad) and are normative (that is, they state or imply what should be). Most people in the United States feel that bullfighting is disgusting and cruel. But to many Mexicans and Spaniards, bullfighting is an important and exciting sport. Similarly, most people in the United States place a negative value on nepotism (hiring or favoring a relative) and on bribery. In other nations, these activities are valued positively and are widely practiced. In some cul­tures, the chief financial officer of a company is often the brother or at least a close relative of the company president, who thinks that this relative can be trusted with the company's money.

Many attitudes are based on cultural values. In the United States, freedom is a dominant value. In others, it is just one value among others. The meaning of any value, including freedom, differs across cultures. An old woman in Saigon told one of the authors that she felt that she could not tolerate the lack of freedom in the United States. In Vietnam she was free to sell her veg­etables on the sidewalk without being hassled by police or city authorities. She did not have to get a permit to fix the roof on her house. She had the free­dom to vote for a communist candidate if she wanted to. She believed that in the United States, where her children lived, people were expected to tell oth­ers what they thought. In Vietnam she had the freedom to remain silent. Her perceptions determined her behavior; she refused to immigrate to the United States to join her children.

As for the categorizing cultures, scientists define several types.