What is culture and how does our culture shape society?

Culture is a shared system of symbols,beliefs,attitudes,values,expectations,and norms for behavior.Your cultural background influences the way you prioritize what is important in life,helps define your attitude toward what is appropriate in a situation,and establishes rules of behavior.Members of a given culture tend to have similar assumptions about how people should think,behave,and communicate,and they all tend to act on those assumptions in much the same way.Cultures can vary in their rate of change,degree of complexity,and tolerance toward outsiders.These differences affect the level of trust and openness you can achieve when communicating with people of other cultures.