Deck 3: Anthropology and Intercultural Relations

Question 1

According to this chapter, why have Iran and the United States had such a difficult time coming to mutually agreeable and beneficial foreign policy decisions?

A) There is a shared history of conflict that is too long and painful to overcome.
B) Iran is religious, whereas the United States has a formal separation between church and state.
C) Each fails to see how the world looks from the other's viewpoint.
D) Neither side is willing to make compromises of any sort.

Answer 1

Each fails to see how the world looks from the other's viewpoint.

Question 2

According to anthropologists, culture is

A) shared, adaptive, and learned.
B) primarily taught in local schools.
C) harmed by exposure to outside influences.
D) All of these are correct.

Answer 2

shared, adaptive, and learned.

Question 3

According to the chapter, which of the following is/are symbolic actions that communicate our identity to others?

A) How close you stand next to someone you don't know.
B) What clothes you wear.
C) How you walk and sit down.
D) All of these are correct.

Answer 3

All of these are correct.

Question 4

What word is defined by the mobilization of cultural symbols to create, sustain, or resist social inequities?

A) Environment
B) Colonialism
C) Subaltern
D) Ideology

Question 5

The process by which you learned to speak, what to eat, or what to wear is called

A) informal learning.
B) formal learning.
C) embodiment.
D) symbolic learning.

Question 6

The diffusion of ideas, technologies, and practices occurs through what types of contact?

A) Military conquest
B) Trade of goods with other nations or regions
C) Exposure to mass media
D) All of these are correct

Question 7

Which of the following is NOT one of the three levels anthropologists use to describe and analyze the way a given culture operates?

A) Cultural practices
B) Cultural diffusion
C) Cultural logics
D) Worldview

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT a part of the text's brief description of cultural practices?

A) The "surface" of culture
B) The artifacts we produce and use
C) The actions of everyday life
D) All of these are cultural practices.

Question 9

The book compares the culture logic behind the Trobrianders' explanations for why magic fails at certain times to which other explanation for failure that is internally consistent with one culture's logic?

A) A ship's crew explaining why they encountered no storms on their journey
B) A dentist explaining why a regular tooth-brusher still gets cavities
C) The use of the phrase "insh'allah" in everyday Egyptian life
D) A street magician in the United Kingdom explaining his card trick

Question 10

Which of the following is the best description of "expressive culture" as the concept was related in the book?

A) The way a culture gets analyzed: e.g., ethnographies, firsthand accounts
B) The way a culture passes on its learning and knowledge to the next generation
C) The way a culture uses language to express feelings
D) The way a culture shows itself to itself: poetry, art, performance

Question 11

Which of the following is an example of a culture shock?

A) Finding out the food in another place is much more delicious than expected
B) Finding out a daily routine of yours is illegal in another country
C) Both of these are correct.
D) Neither of these is correct.

Question 12

Anthropology as a field of study can be said to be

A) evolutionary.
B) comparative.
C) holistic.
D) All of these are correct.

Question 13

What is particularly unique about anthropology, as compared to most other social sciences?

A) Anthropology is primarily concerned the relations of people to their environments
B) Anthropology is not concerned with power relations in society
C) Anthropology is not focused on any one, particular subject matter
D) Anthropology is only concerned with ancient societies and cultures

Question 14

Cross-cultural comparison is necessary to

A) Help determine which cultural practices are rational and which are not.
B) Understand human societies as complex systems of interwoven elements.
C) Demonstrate that practices we assume are natural human behaviors are really learned cultural actions.
D) Explain what causes societies to change over time.

Question 15

Which of the following is considered the holistic way of studying human nature?

A) Studying a group's religion in order to have a better idea of why people in the group act the way they do
B) Studying the power structures in a society to understand why people in the group follow certain rules and leaders
C) Studying the relations between a group's use of land, family ties, social organization, religious practices, language, and material goods and to have a better understanding of why they act the way they do
D) None of these is correct.

Question 16

Long-term study by anthropologists in a host community, in which they enter as deeply as possible into the everyday life of the community is called

A) Quasi-experimental research
B) Social work
C) Community survey analysis
D) Participant-observation

Question 17

An evolutionary account of a given culture, to an anthropologist, would attempt to show that

A) the society has always been improving, going from primitive to modern.
B) the society has lost its distinctive character and should attempt to isolate itself from cultural diffusion.
C) the society constantly changes, not necessarily for the better or the worse.
D) None of these is correct.

Question 18

The best definition of "methodological relativism" is

A) the view that any behavior is acceptable in its own context.
B) the view that any behavior is understandable in its own context.
C) the view that we should understand the context before evaluating the behavior.
D) the view that the best method for evaluating cultural behavior is to have it studied by outside experts.

Question 19

According to the authors, few anthropologists are _____ relativists.

A) Philosophical
B) Theoretical
C) Methodological
D) Functional.

Question 20

Which of the following insights can anthropology offer to the field of international studies?

A) There are usually just about two points of view of things.
B) Culture is not just about understanding world leaders' decisions but also about seeing the effects of those decisions on all people.
C) You should learn about people as much as you can before trying to learn anything from them.
D) All of these are correct.