A person's appearance, manner of bearing, or customary behavioral pattern; in sociology, the internalized social structures that shape behavior.
Direct from Latin habitus, meaning condition, appearance, or bearing. In modern sociology (through Pierre Bourdieu), it refers to ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions acquired through socialization.
Bourdieu's concept of habitus revolutionized sociology: it explains why rich kids naturally 'fit in' at fancy restaurants and poor kids feel uncomfortable—not from intelligence but from subtle, invisible social learning absorbed since birth.
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