Hidden dimensions of culture occur through implicit learning. Kraft (2008) defines worldview as “the totality of the culturally structured images and assumptions in terms of which a people both perceive and respond to reality.” Most important, worldview structures culture’s deepest level with presuppositions and mental images upon which people base their lives. Since cultural worldview remains hidden, one cannot observe it. The most hidden dimension of culture comprises one’s worldview. These encompass norms for rituals, language, roles, ideologies, philosophies, values, tastes, attitudes, desires, assumptions, and myths. The internal culture (hidden or deep culture) lies below the surface of a society comprising ninety percent of culture. Internal: Hidden Culture (Also Called Deep) Thus, while a person gains a more holistic understanding by learning cultural surface and hidden dimensions, one constantly must interpret it through the lens of change. Cultures leave their distinct flavor in a population, changing its overall dynamics.

When cultures and societies interact, each mutually influences the other. Culture does not remain static nonetheless since individuals and people groups change, thereby culture continually fluxes. To grasp a culture in totality, one also must investigate its hidden dimensions. However, the sum of a culture’s parts equals a more developed framework. People often misjudge a culture, whether an individual or collective, by making assumptions the visible ten percent defines the totality of a culture. Regardless of the societal culture, a person gains knowledge of surface culture consciously and purposely. Surface-level behaviors consist of habitual patterns that manifest in a group’s daily culture (Kraft, 2008). Members of a given people group consciously learn rules and customs within the culture through experiences from others within the group. One acquires cultural behaviors and rules through explicit learning. Further, a person may culture surf adapting to the culture at hand.) A given culture may change expectations for behavior over time, i.e., generation to generation. These characteristics demonstrate the surface level behaviors a culture exhibits-the see, hear, and touch behaviors and rules group membership teach and reinforce in their culture. When first engaging with a particular culture, one experiences only the surface ten percent of a given culture. The external or surface part of culture lies at the iceberg tip.

Iceberg model of culture examples