Despite the fact that a man is a creature that possesses certain independence, people have always felt the need to socialize. The author of the article “Symbols. The basic Element of Culture” Leslie A. White has made an important contribution to psychology as a science, interpreting the nature and the meaning of a symbol in people’s lives. However, the article raises certain questions that still need consideration. Leslie’s method to investigate the problem could be described as both the experimental one and the one involving certain theoretical work. Leslie both gathered the existing facts about the role of signs in people’s culture and gave the examples based on her own experience as a scientist. According to the article by Leslie A. White, symbols indicate that “it was the symbol which transformed our anthropoid ancestors into men and made them human.” These are only people that have some to using symbols to express their ideas. However, the symbol is something more than a mere sign that can be interpreted only in one way. There is a certain distinction between them. According to Macionis and Clark (69), A symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by the members of the culture. A whistle, a wall of graffiti, a flashing red light and a fist raised in the air all serve as symbols. Thus, he claims that symbol is something that can be well understood by a certain group of people, while the people not belonging to this very social group would either take these symbols for something else or consider them meaningless. That is what makes a difference between a symbol and a sign which is always the same for the representatives of any culture. The evidence that Leslie drives concerns her own experience and the examples that the psychology already has driven explaining the nature of symbol. These are the cases of people deprived of the ability to use symbols during the process of socializing and what it has driven them to. One of the characteristic features of a symbol given in Symbol. The Basic Element of Culture is that it is acquired as the “thing” the meaning of which is bestowed by those who use it. It is not something settled, and nor is it supposed to have one and the same impact on all people. L. White also emphasizes the fact that symbol is rather a notion than something that is to betaken as an object. It can be an object, a color, a sound or even an odor or a taste. In spite of the fact that author takes the symbols rather as a notion than as an object, some researchers take it even further, expanding the meaning of a symbol to the whole culture. Culture is symbolic. The significance of culture lies in the meaning people give to symbols or things or behaviour. The meaning is not inherent in the symbol but is bestowed by the cultural significance. (Andersen 56) Andersen drives an example of the American flag, which is basically a piece of cloth with the pattern on it, but for the people this is the symbol of democracy and freedom. So a symbol is something that people have to be taught. This is not the intuitional knowledge that can come with the experience, but a certain notion that has to be learned. As Lesley emphasizes, it is only a human