Deck 9: Functionalism, the Pure and the Hyphenated

Question 1

Radcliffe-Brown largely agreed with Boas and Malinowski that anthropology should focus on the study of culture.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Assuming that all people in a particular society follow social rules in the same fashion, Radcliffe-Brown claimed that it was only necessary to know the rules of society in order to understand the behavior of the people who belong to it.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

To understand social structure, according to Radcliffe Brown, it was necessary to understand how it evolved and changed over time, leading him to adopt a "multi-chronic" perspective on society.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The edited volume African Political Systems examined in great detail how colonialism had altered African societies.

Question 5

Reflecting prevalent theories of the time in archaeology and cultural anthropology, African Political Systems showed that stratified societies in Africa were those with the highest population densities.

Question 6

In analyzing the trading partnerships of the kula ring in the Trobriand Islands, Malinowski set out to show how the assumptions of western formal economics apply everywhere.

Question 7

Malinowski viewed magic as an attempt to control events in which there is high risk or uncertainty and an inability to control those events by other, more direct means; as such, he said, it was found in both "primitive" and "civilized" societies.

Question 8

Malinowski argued that cultural practices develop to satisfy seven individual needs universal to all humans.

Question 9

Critics have faulted functionalist theories for being non-falsifiable in that their "explanations" of cultural practices cannot be disproven.

Question 10

Because of its assumption that social practices fulfill the needs of society, functionalism is particularly well-suited to understanding how culture changes as social and individual needs change.