Deck 14: Culture and Culture Change

Question 1

Why are maladaptive customs likely to disappear from a society?

A) no one likes them
B) they diminish the chances of survival and reproduction
C) they are immediately destructive of the group
D) they are too unique for the group

Answer 1

they diminish the chances of survival and reproduction

Question 2

A ________ is a group of people who occupy a particular territory and speak a common language.

A) family
B) culture
C) society
D) sub-culture

Answer 2

society

Question 3

Because a word or phrase can represent what it stands for, whether or not that thing is present, we say that language is

A) interpretive.
B) adaptive.
C) symbolic.
D) naturalistic.

Answer 3

symbolic.

Question 4

Why would any ¡Kung individual of the Kalahari Desert give away all of the animals they kill every day?

A) they are really nice people who care for each other
B) they have learned the true meaning of life
C) to keep the meat to one's self would be wasteful as it would rot
D) spiritual beings show them the true way to live in communal harmony

Question 5

A group within a society that holds commonly shared customs is a

A) subculture.
B) sodality.
C) subsociety.
D) subgroup.

Question 6

For something to be cultural, it must be

A) traditional.
B) learned and commonly shared.
C) part of a society's ideals.
D) unchanging.

Question 7

Variations in individual behavior are confined within __________ acceptable limits.

A) legally
B) a group's
C) socially
D) normally

Question 8

Emile Durkheim stressed that culture is something __________ us exerting a strong __________ power on us.

A) inside/coercive
B) outside/limiting
C) inside/limiting
D) outside/coercive

Question 9

The concept of cultural integration means that

A) cultural elements or traits are adjusted to or constant with.
B) various subgroups in the society work together.
C) cultural traits that are maladaptive can be made to work with adaptive traits.
D) cultural elements relate only in certain ways.

Question 10

Anthropologists, as well as other social scientists, feel that culture is

A) inherited.
B) learned and shared.
C) transmitted only from one group to another.
D) only a small part of how people learn their behaviors.

Question 11

In the Asch experiment, ___________of the subjects retained their independent opinions.

A) 2/3
B) 1/2
C) 1/4
D) 5/8

Question 12

Standards or rules about what is acceptable behavior are referred to by social scientists as

A) major rules.
B) laws.
C) mores.
D) norms.

Question 13

In discovering cultural patterns, it is sometimes necessary to conduct surveys. What sampling technique is necessary to guarantee a representative sample?

A) population sampling
B) redundant sampling
C) random sampling
D) marginal sampling

Question 14

The most powerful transmitter of culture is probably

A) parents.
B) the elders of a society.
C) the school system.
D) language.

Question 15

Particular behaviors and ideas that vary from society to society are

A) genetic.
B) adaptive.
C) learned.
D) taught.

Question 16

In anthropology, the term "culture" refers to

A) the care of plant and animal resources.
B) the artistic heritage of any society, including painting and sculpture, music and the performing arts.
C) the long-standing traditions of a particular society.
D) all the learned behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, values, and ideals that are characteristic of a particular society or population.

Question 17

The traditional Bedouin patterns of ________ depends on mobility.

A) survival
B) herding animals
C) culture
D) customs

Question 18

The anthropological attitude that a society's customs and ideas should be described objectively and understood in the context of that society's problems and opportunities is called

A) ethnocentrism.
B) cultural relativism.
C) humanistic.
D) empathetic.

Question 19

A person who judges other cultures solely in terms of his or her own culture is said to be

A) integrated.
B) maladaptive.
C) ethnocentric.
D) prejudice.

Question 20

Elizabeth Zechenter suggests that the concept of __________ is often used to justify traditions desired by the dominant and powerful.

A) cultural relativism
B) ethnocentrism
C) adaptation
D) maladaptation

Question 21

The term "subculture" refers to

A) the conscious behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, values, and ideals of a society.
B) the unconscious behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, values, and ideals of a society.
C) a cultural pattern considered inferior by members of a society.
D) the variant culture of a group of people within a larger society.

Question 22

Humans have a long childhood because

A) a human's life span is the longest of all animals.
B) we learn very little in childhood and need time to prepare for adulthood.
C) this reflects the degree to which humans depend on learned behavior for survival.
D) it takes a long time to learn how to grow food.

Question 23

Which of the following is a behavior that would most likely be subject to direct cultural constraints in American society?

A) choosing to wear nothing
B) a young man's attempt to kiss his girlfriend
C) a woman carrying her child in a soft basket hung from her head
D) dancing in the street before going to work

Question 24

A complex system of spoken, symbolic communication, which we call "language"

A) probably originated in a few societies 20,000 years ago.
B) has existed in people known to anthropologists.
C) does not exist among many of the world's simpler societies.
D) probably originated about the same time as agriculture.

Question 25

One thing that can be said about culture is

A) it refers to innumerable aspects of life.
B) it is undefinable.
C) it never changes.
D) it exists in every society and thus is instinctive.

Question 26

Every culture has norms or standards of what is acceptable behavior. The importance of a norm is usually determined by

A) how long the written version of it is.
B) how much it differs from other cultural norms.
C) how members of a society respond when the norm is violated.
D) the highest ranked person in the society.

Question 27

The fact that monkeys and apes can learn new behaviors from each other

A) does not necessarily mean that they have culture, since their social life may be purely instinctual.
B) suggests that they have a culture.
C) suggests that they are ancestral to modern humans.
D) suggest that they are classified as more cultural than many mammals that spend their lives in isolation.

Question 28

One example of _________ is how far apart people stand when they are having a conversation.

A) custom
B) random sample
C) integration
D) cultural pattern

Question 29

The ideal cultural patterns of a society

A) generally reflect the way a society was in the past.
B) consist of the cultural patterns that most people always exhibit.
C) consist of the ideas people have about how they ought to behave.
D) are usually followed by the most respected members of a community, though not necessarily by others.

Question 30

Which type of behavior would most appropriately be studied with a random sample of individuals?

A) public behavior
B) unconscious behavior
C) private behavior
D) both b and c

Question 31

Cultural relativism was an idea created by Franz Boas because

A) he recognized that a society's customs and ideas should be described objectively.
B) he realized that subjective judgments were the best way of looking at cultures.
C) he felt Western culture was superior.
D) he never went into the field to do cultural studies.

Question 32

Why are Western countries sometimes criticized for being too involved in the human rights issues of other cultures?

A) because the Western countries do not get involved enough.
B) because they often dictate ideas about cultural behavior as a result of having a different code of ethics.
C) because no one truly knows what is acceptable behavior.
D) because Western countries are rich and have no idea how to live "normally."

Question 33

Anthropologists try very hard to eliminate ethnocentric thoughts and behaviors in their work because

A) they stand in the way of open-mindedness.
B) judging other cultures solely in terms of their own culture is restrictive thinking.
C) they don't allow a more complete understanding of the population being studied.
D) all of the above.

Question 34

Anthropologists, when studying culture, try to distinguish actual behavior from ideas about how people ought to feel and behave. This is because

A) there is often a difference between ideal behavior and actual behavior.
B) the ideal is based on the way a society used to be.
C) ideal behavior may be what they would like to see as correct behavior.
D) all of the above.

Question 35

One of the indications of how much an animal depends on learned behavior for survival is the

A) distance it travels from its home base.
B) amount of social behavior the animal exhibits.
C) proportion of an animal's life span spent in childhood.
D) size of an animal.

Question 36

Which of the following is an example of an ideal cultural pattern in the United States?

A) the belief that God is full of anger and vengeance
B) the belief that students go on to college to get away from their parents
C) the belief that everybody is equal before the law
D) the high value given to apple pie in American society

Question 37

The frequency distribution of behavior patterns in a group very often takes the form of

A) a bell-shaped curve.
B) a straight line graph.
C) an S-shaped curve.
D) a Poisson curve.

Question 38

Many cognitive anthropologists feel that culture is in people's heads because

A) they often fantasize about what culture should be.
B) culture actually refers to rules and ideas behind culture.
C) the media tells us what culture is.
D) it makes it a lot easier to study ancient cultures.

Question 39

Discoveries and inventions are ultimately the sources of all culture change, but any one may not necessarily lead to change. Why?

A) the patterns leading to change are too complicated
B) you must have 100% of the society believe in the change
C) if a discovery is ignored, it won't lead to change
D) inventions are not often spread throughout the society for people to experience

Question 40

Sometimes it appears that culture is random, but in fact it is integrated. What makes it integrated?

A) the traits that make up culture are adjusted to, or consistent with, one another.
B) the fact that everyone in society believes it is.
C) because it is a hodgepodge of behaviors and ideas.
D) all of the above.

Question 41

Describe an action that would lead to imprisonment. How does prison act as a constraint to an individual? Why do some people violate norms (and end up in prison)?

Question 42

Why may it be necessary for anthropologists to abandon the strong form of cultural relativism in favor of the weaker form?

Question 43

How are the two statements-"culture is adaptive" and "culture is always changing"-related?

Question 44

Define ethnocentrism. What forms does it take in our own society? What can be done to reduce attitudes of ethnocentrism between various groups?