Question

@e.mccormick Will help me understanding something?

Answer 1

I was wondering if you could give me examples of sociofacts and mentifacts

Answer 2

Sociofacts are cultural elements that relate to social behavior, unity, and control.
Mentifacts are the concepts, ideas, beliefs, or meanings that guide cultures.

Answer 3

Another set of descriptions at the top here:
http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/geog1000/Notes/Notes_Exam1/Culture.html

Answer 4

If you look at it, the artifact is an object. But what if the object is something that only lives in thoughts? Then is is a mentifact. If it is a construct of the society as in a normal behavior or mores then it is a sociofact.

Answer 5

The examples there show religion as a major mentifact. As a strong personal belief system, that is a good one. That also means being agnostic is because again, it is a strong mental belief system.

Answer 6

do you think I should do the United States or Greece?

Answer 7

It is up to you. Both are good choices.

The sociofacts might be based in beliefs, but the min difference is that they are products of society wide values. They do some good examples with the meaning of family there. The meaning of job, career, hmm... perhaps even proper might be a good one. Let me look for some more defined examples.

Answer 8

From a powerpoint:

Traits are the essential elements of culture
artifacts (material)
mentifacts (symbolic)
sociofacts (organizational)
These three types of culture traits are interrelated: a trait like the can opener implies the can (artifact), which implies a market-based economy (sociofact), which implies the idea of money (mentifact), etc…

Answer 9

Sociofacts:
Confucianism
Children are expected to be subservient to adults
Women are expected to be subservient to men

Answer 10

Sociofacts linked to the use of the corset
Endured in modified form into the 1950s
Women of the upper classes “needed help” (out of seats, up stairs, etc.)
Families showed their class by preventing girls from engaging in strenuous activities like sports and manual labor
“Good” women were “delicate” and dependent
Girls from working-class families were not embodied in this way

Answer 11

it is starting to make more sense now.

Answer 12

OK, that helps clarify it. So organizational elements, like family, male, female, good girls, bad girls, etc. are sociaofacts. If all good guys wore white hats, then the organizational part would be good guys and the artifact would be the white hat and the mentifact would be the set of values that demanded only good guys wear them.

Answer 13

Thanks so much! When I finish do you think you could see if I got it right?

Answer 14

OK. I never took Human Geography, but a lot of these terms are also in sociology, which I know a chunk of, so it works out pretty well for helping with these. Hehe.