Minkov indb

1.4. Classifications of 
the Concepts of Culture 
Concepts of culture can fall into a num-
ber of different categories. These clas-
sifications cannot be easily contrasted in 
terms of good versus bad or true versus 
false. They simply reflect diverse perspec-
tives, all of which may have some merits. 
Cultural analysts should decide which 
perspective best suits the purpose of their 
research and explain it to their audiences. 
Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, and Lai (1999) 
described two types of culture: residing 
inside individuals and outside them. The 
first type is what Triandis (1972) called 
subjective culture or what Hofstede (2001) 
referred to as software of the human mind: 
beliefs, values, and internalized interac-
tion patterns. The second type consists 
of the man-made environment and can 
include everything that people have cre-
ated, including institutions and art. 
Rohner (1984) discusses two other dis-
tinctions in the conceptualization of cul-
ture. First, there is a contrast between 
culture as a system of behaviors versus 
culture as a set of meanings. Second, there 
are scholars, called realists, who attribute 
an independent existence to culture, versus 
others, called nominalists, who view it as a 
subjective human construct. 
Because these categories are not easy to 
grasp, they require special attention. 
 1.4.1. SUBJECTIVE CULTURE: 
MENTAL SOFTWARE 
Subjective culture is viewed as something 
invisible that resides in people’s minds. 
In his 1980 book, Geert Hofstede intro-
duced his metaphor of culture as mental 
programming or software of the mind. 
However, Hofstede (2001) noted that not 
all elements of collective mental program-
ming should be viewed as culture. For 
instance, collective and individual identi-
ties may not be classifiable as cultural 
elements. They provide an answer to the 
question “Where do I belong” (p. 10) or 
“Who/what are we?” and “Who/what 
am I?” According to Hofstede (2001), 
populations that share similar cultural 
values may sometimes fight each other if 
they have adopted different identities. It 

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Understanding “Culture”
may also be useful to distinguish religious 
denominations (and thus religious identi-
ties) from cultures. This point will be dis-
cussed in 2.6.3. 
 1.4.2. OBJECTIVE CULTURE: 
INSTITUTIONS AND ARTIFACTS 
Objective culture can be conceptualized 
as created by individuals and residing 
outside them. Art objects, clothing, work 
instruments, and residential constructions 
are examples of visible cultural artifacts 
that have an objective existence; these 
are studied mainly by ethnographers. 
Institutions, such as marriage systems, 
and laws (including inheritance systems, 
taboos, etc.), and political or religious 
bodies, are instances of invisible elements 
of objective culture. Traditionally, these 
were studied mostly by anthropologists 
and historians; today, political scientists 
and sociologists are interested in the insti-
tutions of modern nations. 
 1.4.3. CULTURE AS A SYSTEM OF 
BEHAVIORS 
According to Brown (1991), “culture 
consists of the conventional patterns of 
thought, activity, and artifact that are 
passed on from generation to generation” 
(p. 40). Thus, if a society demonstrates a 
recognizable pattern of activity, such as 
rice cultivation, that is part of its culture. 
Not all anthropologists agree with this 
view, though. Murdock (1940) dissociated 
behavior from the scope of culture, stating 
that the former does not automatically 
follow the latter, “which is only one of 
its determinants” (p. 366). The following 
statement by Haviland (1990) summarizes 
the views of many anthropologists: 
Recent definitions [of culture] tend to 
distinguish more clearly between actual 
behavior on the one hand, and the 
abstract values, beliefs, and perceptions 
of the world that lie behind that behav-
ior on the other. To put it another way, 
culture is not observable behavior, but 
rather the values and beliefs that people 
use to interpret experience and generate 
behavior, and that is reflected in their 
behavior. (p. 30) 
Whether behaviors should or should 
not be considered part of culture is of 
course a matter of abstract conceptual-
ization. On a more practical note, the 
question is whether cross-cultural analysts 
who attempt to explain cultural differ-
ences should compare behaviors, in addi-
tion to whatever else they study, or not. 
The answer to this question can only be 
positive.