Deck 16: Culture Cooperation and Human Uniqueness

Question 1

Which of the following is evidence against the mismatch hypothesis?

A) Members of contemporary hunter-gatherer bands are not as closely related as thought, and unrelated individuals in most societies cooperate often.
B) People frequently move between bands, so cooperation of any kind is impossible.
C) Individuals cooperate only with family members.
D) Cooperation is simply rarely observed among most human groups.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

A study on capuchins showed that they learn to forage Luhea fruit through

A) observation and trial and error.
B) trial and error.
C) observation alone
D) genetic adaptation

Answer 2

C

Question 3

According to your text, humans owe much of their success to all the following EXCEPT

A) culture.
B) intelligence.
C) individuality.
D) cooperation.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Unlike other cooperative mammal species, humans

A) cooperate only with their relatives.
B) cooperate with large numbers of unrelated individuals.
C) rarely cooperate.
D) cooperate only under the supervision of government institutions.

Question 5

Social facilitation occurs when

A) an older individual actively helps the young to learn, for example, by manipulating their hands.
B) the activity of older animals indirectly increases the chances that the young will learn the behavior on their own.
C) young animals use older animals as behavioral models.
D) older animals teach younger animals to be social.

Question 6

Most mammals and birds attain appropriate behaviors matched to their environment through

A) personal experience alone.
B) information passed on from other individuals alone.
C) information encoded in their genes alone.
D) a combination of innate, genetic behaviors and personal experience.

Question 7

The mismatch hypothesis holds that the psychological machinery that supports human cooperation evolved in

A) agricultural societies.
B) industrial societies.
C) small hunter-gatherer societies.
D) pastoralist societies.

Question 8

Observational learning occurs when

A) an older individual actively helps the young to learn, for example, by manipulating their hands.
B) the activity of older animals indirectly increases the chances that the young will learn the behavior on their own.
C) young animals use older animals as behavioral models.
D) older animals teach younger animals to be social.

Question 9

You have just completed a study of chimpanzee tool use. You noticed that young chimpanzees accompanied females to sites where tools and termites were available and females practiced termite fishing. Young chimpanzees usually played and socialized with each other while females fed. If these chimpanzees grow up to termite fish themselves, you can conclude that this behavior was passed on through which mechanism?

A) Active teaching
B) Observational learning
C) Social facilitation
D) Imitation

Question 10

According to the authors of your textbook,

A) human evolution is basically over because most of the evolution of human behavior and human societies is not driven by natural selection.
B) human evolution is rapidly continuing as humans biologically adapt to their environments.
C) genetic evolution is more likely today than it was before the advent of agriculture 10 kya.
D) natural selection is completely irrelevant to the study of human behavior and mate choice in modern societies.

Question 11

You have just completed a study of chimpanzee tool use. You noticed that young chimpanzees accompanied females to sites where tools and termites were available and females practiced termite fishing. Young chimpanzees usually watched their mothers carefully while they made tools and fed. If these chimpanzees grow up to termite fish themselves, you can conclude that this behavior was passed on through which mechanism?

A) Active teaching
B) Observational learning
C) Social facilitation
D) Imitation

Question 12

Most cultural traditions in nonhuman primates can be accounted for by

A) social facilitation.
B) noncultural factors.
C) genetic differences.
D) the environment.

Question 13

Cultural group selection differs from natural selection in that

A) differences in cultural adaptations can be established between groups.
B) there is a struggle for existence.
C) there is variation in traits.
D) traits are heritable.

Question 14

Social facilitation

A) allows for the development of cumulative culture because individuals from every generation learn each behavioral variant on their own.
B) allows behavioral variants to be copied and changed by succeeding generations.
C) results in very complex behaviors, skills, belief systems, and bodies of knowledge for nonhuman primates.
D) occurs because individuals are in situations that allow them to experiment and solve similar problems in the same way.

Question 15

Cumulative cultural change is possible

A) with social facilitation only.
B) with observational learning only.
C) only when learning is mainly genetic
D) only in humans

Question 16

The Central Inuit, who inhabited the Canadian Arctic, made a living by

A) hunting and fishing.
B) foraging for nuts and fruit.
C) farming.
D) raising cattle.

Question 17

Large-scale cooperation among humans may have been favored when

A) relatedness among members of the group was high.
B) relatedness among members of the group was low.
C) predation was high.
D) predation was low.

Question 18

Culture

A) is common in other primates.
B) occurs only in humans.
C) is common in other primates, but cumulative cultural change is rare in other animals.
D) is common in other primates, and is also cumulative, just as in humans.

Question 19

Are culturally transmitted behaviors always adaptive?

A) Yes, otherwise they would quickly disappear.
B) No, some such behaviors are adaptive, some are neutral, and some are maladaptive.
C) No, all such behaviors are neutral.
D) Anthropologists can't really address the question of adaptiveness of cultural behaviors

Question 20

Culture is defined in the text as

A) information acquired through social learning.
B) shared knowledge about the world by every member of society.
C) language.
D) behavior that is determined mainly by genes.

Question 21

Define social facilitation, observational learning, and emulation. How do these different types of learning mechanisms play a role in shaping human culture?

Question 22

When chimpanzees are shown a specific behavior, they typically

A) copy it faithfully.
B) do not copy it.
C) only copy the components that are relevant to achieving an outcome.
D) copy only a few randomly chosen components.

Question 23

How does culture differ between human and nonhuman primates? How is it similar?

Question 24

The Yurok

A) built pyramids.
B) built snow houses that kept them warm during frigid winters.
C) made a living by raising and herding cattle.
D) constructed weirs to harvest salmon requiring the labor of hundreds of men from different villages.

Question 25

Why can cultural inheritance lead to outcomes not predicted by evolutionary theory?

Question 26

Imagine you are a European explorer living in nineteenth-century Europe and you decide to embark on an expedition to explore the Arctic. Based on historical evidence, how likely are you to survive this journey and why?

Question 27

Which of the following is a typical outcome of the dictator game?

A) Proposers allocate 20% to 30% of their endowments to the other player.
B) Proposers allocate 80% to 90% of their endowments to the other player.
C) Proposers refuse to allocate any of their endowments to the other player.
D) Proposers receive a 20% bonus for being generous.

Question 28

Compared with genetic evolution, cultural evolution

A) is slower.
B) is faster because it can occur in individuals and be passed on.
C) occurs at the same rate.
D) is faster because it alters the underlying genes, which then quickly spread through the population.

Question 29

In what ways is human cooperation different from that of other mammal species?

Question 30

The Turkana

A) practice farming.
B) live in permanent settlements.
C) frequently engage in warfare.
D) have a hierarchical political system with a king.

Question 31

What do game theory scenarios illustrate about the nature of human cooperation? Include in your answer a discussion of the dictator game and the ultimatum game.

Question 32

Members of the Franklin Expedition of 1846

A) perished because they were unable to figure out how to adapt to the arctic habitat.
B) succeeded in surviving the harsh arctic conditions.
C) had access to accumulated local knowledge.
D) brought with them a diverse tool kit.

Question 33

Emulation occurs when individuals

A) perform an action by watching the behavior of others.
B) learn the end state of a behavior but not the behavior that generated the end state.
C) have an increased chance of learning a behavior when others have that behavior.
D) learn a behavior by following the first steps then figuring out the rest on their own.

Question 34

Chimpanzees and capuchins likely lack complex cultural repertoires for the all the following reasons EXCEPT

A) not all individuals copy behaviors accurately.
B) individuals settle on only one technique once it is learned.
C) individuals do not blindly copy all of the behavior's details.
D) individuals are unable to imitate behaviors.

Question 35

Large-scale cooperation can be maintained through

A) punishment of free-riders.
B) prosocial sentiments.
C) enforcement of moral normal by third parties.
D) All of the above.