Deck 4: Psychological and Cognitive Anthropology

Question 1

According to Margaret Mead, Samoan adolescents were openly permitted to engage in premarital sex.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Incest avoidance is a universal practice among all known human societies.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The majority of human behaviors are driven by closed instincts.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

A parrot's ability to speak like a human is an example of a closed instinct.

Question 5

Ruth Benedict argued that cultures could be classified according to specific "psychological types."

Question 6

According to Derek Freeman, most Samoans had puritanical views toward sexuality.

Question 7

According to Jean Piaget, people in different cultures progress through different cognitive and developmental stages.

Question 8

The childhood familiarity hypothesis proposes that children raised together are more likely to become sexually involved as adults.

Question 9

Studies have shown that Japanese children are raised in such a way as to lose their sense of individuality in favor of group identity.

Question 10

Recent research in new types of psychological anthropology show that children are not passive recipients during enculturation.

Question 11

Personality is a combination of enculturation and biologically based predispositions.

Question 12

Culture allows humans to adjust to a wide range of physical environments.

Question 13

Enculturation completely determines a person's personality and behavior.

Question 14

Derek Freeman argued that Margaret Mead's research concerning adolescents in Samoa was flawed and led her to make erroneous conclusions.

Question 15

Franz Boas had a guiding influence on Margaret Mead.

Question 16

Instincts can be learned.

Question 17

Derek Freeman argued that biological influences play a significant role in adolescent behavior.

Question 18

Humans cannot ignore or override their basic, inborn drives.

Question 19

The interactionist perspective prioritizes nature over nurture.

Question 20

Evolutionary psychologists have proposed that the human brain's capacity for culture developed independently from our need to adapt to the environment.

Question 21

The human capacity for culture is __________.

A) learned after birth
B) genetically programmed
C) weaker than for instinctual behavior
D) severely limited

Question 22

In her classic work Patterns of Culture (1934), Ruth Benedict used the terms "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" to describe __________.

A) cultural "personalities" of Pueblo and Plains Indians
B) religious cults of northern and southern Greece
C) rituals of warfare and celebration in the South Pacific
D) contrasting models of cultural diffusion

Question 23

An example of one way in which humans can make decisions to ignore or override basic needs would be __________.

A) telling a lie
B) abstaining from sex
C) running a marathon
D) sleeping late

Question 24

Berdache is a European term used to refer to biological males in Native American societies who __________.

A) asserted their personal power through public displays of heterosexual prowess
B) chose to abstain from sex so they could focus on spiritual growth
C) wore female clothing and may have engaged in homosexual relationships
D) participated in homosexual activity only when they were preparing for war

Question 25

Value judgments concerning homosexuality are based on __________.

A) genetics
B) behavior
C) anatomy
D) culture

Question 26

Cross-cultural studies of human sexual desire have revealed that __________.

A) in all cultures, adults seek to engage in regular sexual activity
B) sexual desire and sexual activity are strongly conditioned by cultural practices
C) there are universal taboos against premarital sex
D) human sexual desire is greatest among people who live in the tropics

Question 27

After spending nine months in Samoa and working with individuals in three different villages, Margaret Mead concluded that __________.

A) Samoan society differed little from that of the United States in the 1920s
B) many key elements of Samoan culture had diffused from Thailand
C) Franz Boas's theories of cultural relativism had serious flaws
D) becoming an adult was less stressful in Samoa than in the United States

Question 28

Margaret Mead got most of her information on the behavior of adolescents in Samoa from __________.

A) accounts of travelers and missionaries
B) newspaper accounts and government reports
C) watching ethnographic films
D) interviewing young women

Question 29

The central object of Margaret Mead's study, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), was to determine whether or not __________.

A) kinship patterns in Samoa could be attributed to diffusion from China
B) the events of World War II had an effect on traditional family structure in Samoa
C) the transition from adolescence into adulthood was stressful in all societies
D) maturation rates of Samoan teenagers were directly related to race and heredity

Question 30

Anthropologists have discovered that children raised together in Israeli kibbutzim __________.

A) will usually have successful marriages to one another as adults
B) do not make good marriage partners for one another
C) have a natural tendency toward homosexuality
D) tend to have little appreciation for nuclear families

Question 31

The process by which an individual learns how to behave within a particular society is known as __________.

A) cognition
B) cultural relativism
C) cultural adaptation
D) enculturation

Question 32

Early anthropologists, such as E. B. Tylor, suggested that incest taboos originated in order to __________.

A) encourage alliances and cooperation between descent groups
B) avoid the serious consequences of genetic interbreeding
C) strengthen the role of patrilineal descent groups
D) regulate and limit sexual behavior within small communities

Question 33

When anthropologists discuss "agency," they are referring to which of the following?

A) the organizations that fund anthropological research
B) the informants that represent the culture they are studying
C) the ability to act on behalf of the populations they are studying
D) the intentional choices people make that may alter their cultural world

Question 34

The Oedipus complex proposed by Sigmund Freud suggested that __________.

A) dreams reveal unconscious sexual desires
B) children who have grown up in the same household share sexual attractions
C) male children have an unconscious desire to have a sexual relationship with their mother
D) all human personalities are composed of an id, ego, and superego

Question 35

One of the principal criticisms of the culture-and-personality school is that __________.

A) there is no evidence for a biological link between culture and personality
B) it tends to assume greater uniformity in personality than actually exists in society
C) the investigation of personality should be done by psychologists, not anthropologists
D) individual behavior is more important than the behavior of a whole society

Question 36

Most anthropologists have come to agree that human behavior __________.

A) is mostly determined by genetic inheritance
B) is usually automatic and instinctual
C) results from learning only
D) results from a combination of biology and culture

Question 37

Fixed, complex, genetically based, unlearned behaviors are referred to as __________.

A) phobias
B) instincts
C) habits
D) cultures

Question 38

Human needs for food and sex are __________.

A) drives
B) instincts
C) obsessions
D) learned behavior

Question 39

Nests built in a particular shape by a single species of bird are examples of __________.

A) material culture
B) cultural adaptation
C) instinctual behavior
D) learned behavior

Question 40

Humans are considered to have no closed instincts because they __________.

A) react automatically to loud noises
B) cannot avoid instinctual behavior
C) learn new behaviors easily
D) are always looking for new experiences

Question 41

The field of structural anthropology, founded by Claude Lévi-Strauss, has as one of its basic premises the notion that there is a "deep universal structure" to cultural phenomena. According to Lévi-Strauss, this structure is characterized by __________.

A) thought in images and symbols, completely divorced from language
B) cognitive patterns that reflect unconscious sexual desires
C) the development of consciousness through personal revelations
D) reasoning based on the construction of contrasting pairs

Question 42

Why are narratives of interest to cognitive anthropologists?

A) They are a means for coordinating thought processes.
B) They illustrate the limits of human imagination.
C) They represent a higher cultural evolution.
D) They relate unconscious desires through verbal means.

Question 43

Synthesize the approaches of cognitive anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and neuroanthropology. How do you think these fields can work together to reveal the inner workings of culture and cognition? How do you think technological advances will help further research?

Question 44

Discuss the human sex drive from an anthropological perspective. How does culture influence patterns of sexuality? What have anthropologists learned about the patterning of sexuality and gender throughout the world? Compare and contrast two "third genders" discussed in your text.

Question 45

Catherine Lutz would advise researchers to do which of the following?

A) disregard emotion when conducting cultural research because it varies so much individually
B) translate Western emotional concepts into other languages
C) accept that all human emotions are universally equivalent
D) consider the cultural context when trying to understand emotions

Question 46

How have the ideas of human personality and development introduced by Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget influenced anthropological understandings of culture and enculturation?

Question 47

Discuss anthropology's approach to understanding human emotions. Does this differ from a psychological approach? If so, how? How might recent approaches to human emotions influence how we understand the work of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict?

Question 48

What reasons have anthropologists proposed for why people avoid participating in incestuous relationships? How have cross-cultural studies supported or contradicted the notion that incest taboos are universal? Support your answer with specific examples.

Question 49

The use of government legislation to prohibit or limit homosexual behavior is a practice that __________.

A) has been employed unwaveringly throughout European history
B) reflects cross-cultural values shared by human societies worldwide
C) is a remnant of Puritanism in the United States
D) is justified on the basis of scientific evidence

Question 50

What are some of the ways in which decisions influenced by one's culture can regularly override basic human drives to: 1) eat, 2) sleep, 3) have sex?

Question 51

Claude Lévi-Strauss, in a book entitled The Savage Mind (1966), proposed that __________.

A) people in small-scale societies have different thought patterns than urban dwellers
B) it was impossible to compare logical systems of primitive and civilized societies
C) there is a universal, logical structure to all human cognition, regardless of culture
D) the thought systems of traditional, indigenous people were superior to our own

Question 52

The classification of foods into categories of kosher (edible) and traif (not edible) is an example of __________.

A) preoperational reasoning
B) cognitive dissonance
C) binary opposition
D) ethnocentric enculturation

Question 53

According to psychologist Jean Piaget, learning occurs through the processes of __________.

A) assimilation and accommodation
B) enculturation and intimidation
C) absorption and cognation
D) affiliation and enculturation

Question 54

What is the interactionist perspective? Do you think biology or culture has a greater influence on human behavior? Discuss the difference between drives and instincts in your answer. Be specific.

Question 55

Compare and contrast Derek Freeman's and Margaret Mead's research in Samoa. Discuss the controversy that arose over Mead's work. What were the principal issues in Freeman's critique of Mead's research? How does this controversy reflect general criticisms of the culture-and-personality school?

Question 56

Evolutionary psychologists are particularly interested in __________.

A) why modern technology is evolving at such a rapid rate
B) the influence of natural selection on the human brain during the Paleolithic
C) the many differences found in particular cultures today
D) applying the theories of Freud and Piaget to understanding human enculturation

Question 57

The hijras of India are anatomically male at the time of their birth. However, after having their genitals surgically removed, they dress like females and engage in certain male-only activities like smoking water pipes. In Indian society, they are considered to be __________.

A) social deviants
B) men
C) women
D) a third gender

Question 58

Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's research on color terms lends support to the idea that __________.

A) color naming is arbitrary
B) color terms are biologically hard-wired
C) basic color terms are the same in every language
D) the human mind organizes reality in terms of prototypes

Question 59

What are some of the most important methods of enculturation used in your own society? Give an example of how your own personality has been affected by enculturation. Conclude with a discussion of agency and the limits of enculturation in general as well as in your own experience.

Question 60

How are children in Japan raised differently from those in the United States? What effects, if any, does this have on the personality of individuals raised in Japan? Are there differences between Eastern and Western societies with regard to the ways individuals perceive themselves relative to society? What is the evidence for your interpretation?