Button - Down Collar Culture: A Study of Undergraduate Life at a Men’s College

Every group existing through time comes to develop its own way of life or culture. Its members tend to do the same things in similar ways and to think similarly about what they and others do. The term culture patterns refers to such consensus of opinion and behavior. Because of such consensus, the individual not only comes to know how to behave in different situations and how to expect others to behave in those situations, but also is afforded a standard against which to measure his own behavior. If his behavior is in accordance with the behavior of others, he is secure in his status as a group member and the group solidarity is correspondingly strengthened, since, in this instance, the group is not faced with the problem of deviancy which must be resolved somehow so as not to disrupt its normal life. In short, a system of rewards and punishments is built into the way of life of the group. The culture functions as a "rule book" which defines the situation for the individual in terms of how he is expected to behave. Those who conform to group norms are rewarded. Those who do not are punished. The norms of the group are not absolute, in the sense that each individual must do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way in the same situation. Rather, they include a certain range of permissible variation. As the individual begins to deviate too sharply, he is regarded as "different." Those whose behavior and/or ideas deviate even more from accepted group practices and beliefs are regarded as "quite different," perhaps labeled as "queer" or "odd" and are regarded as being definitely detrimental to group welfare.