Culture is fundamentally rooted in meaningful information. It relies on language for sharing and encoding this information. People's behaviors are influenced by various cultural factors, such as laws, religious teachings, moral principles, historical events, symbols, literature, media, and education. Unlike humans, non-human animals generally respond to much less of this kind of information.
Humans also have the ability to think about and plan for the future, unlike animals like squirrels. For example, if a squirrel's stored nuts are taken away, it will continue to bury more nuts without attempting to make up for the loss.