recreation (creativity) is undoubtedly one of the important designing bases and a durable, matchless and unique factor which determines distinction, excellence, and elegance of a building in comparison with other buildings; and architecture as one of the manifestations of human life in a special time and place can be a reflection of thoughts, ideas and living method and also represent identity ...

Video-sharing social media like YouTube provide access to diverse cultural products from all over the world, making it possible to test theories that the Web facilitates global cultural convergence. Drawing on a daily listing of YouTube's most popular videos across 58 countries, we investigate the consumption of popular videos in countries that differ in cultural values, language, gross domesti...

In recent years, far from arguing that evolutionary approaches to our own species permit us to describe the fundamental character of human nature, a prominent group of cultural evolutionary theorists has instead argued that the very idea of 'human nature' is one we should reject. It makes no sense, they argue, to speak of human nature in opposition to human culture. The very same sceptical argu...

The study of consumer tastes and preferences of individuals towards cultural goods including music can determine the type and structure of social relations and interaction between people in different social strata.Contrary to what is commonly believed to joy and entertainment, instrumental music is not the thing that can reflect the meaning of life in a community or group. This study aims to st...

Activity theory emphasizes the mediational role of the culture factors and the social factors in an activity system. Viewed from the perspective of activity theory, a problem-based learning (PBL) activity is an activity system, in which the cultural and social characteristics are different from that of traditional subject based learning. It is claimed that such distinction should be reflected i...

In field-capital theory, people acquire economic, social and cultural capital which they deploy in social arenas known as "fields" to compete for positions of distinction and status. Competitive behaviour in these fields is of interest to marketers. Examining human behaviour through the lens of field and capital theory highlights the importance of the competition motive in explaining consumers'...

To understand social status, we need to start with Max Weber’s (1968) distinction between class and status. In my work with John Goldthorpe, we argue that the Weberian distinction is not only conceptually cogent, but also empirically useful. Class and status do have differing explanatory power in different areas of social life. Following Weber (1968), we understand the status order as a set of ...