Deck 2: Culture and Culture Change

Question 1

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

A) suggests that they have a culture
B) does not necessarily mean that they have culture
C) suggests that they are ancestral to modern humans
D) indicates that they have a rudimentary language

Answer 1

suggests that they have a culture

Question 2

Which of the following is true of conformity studies across culture?

A) The degree of conformity varies, but most studies still show a conformity effect.
B) The degree of conformity is relatively stable across cultures.
C) The number of studies showing a conformity effect is about equal to those that find no effect.
D) There is no conformity effect in most non-Western societies.

Answer 2

The degree of conformity varies, but most studies still show a conformity effect.

Question 3

Which important tenet of anthropology was first championed by Franz Boas to challenge the attitude that Western culture was inherently superior to others?

A) cultural relativism
B) participant-observation
C) ethnocentrism
D) evolutionism

Answer 3

cultural relativism

Question 4

The tendency to judge other cultures without trying to grasp the reasons behind their customs is what anthropologists refer to as __________.

A) ethnocentrism
B) acculturation
C) cultural relativism
D) diffusion

Question 5

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

A) society
B) culture
C) family
D) subculture

Question 6

Ethnocentrism both hinders our understanding of other peoples' cultures and __________.

A) keeps us from understanding our own customs
B) helps us adopt other peoples' customs for our own uses
C) ensures that our culture will never change
D) reminds us of how much our culture has evolved

Question 7

An adaptive custom is one that __________.

A) enhances survival and reproduction
B) changes with other cultural fluctuations
C) persists over several generations
D) was learned from other cultures

Question 8

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

A) outside; coercive b) outside; limiting
B) inside; limiting
C) inside; coercive

Question 9

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

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

Question 10

When a member of a group diverges from acceptable standards, or norms, of social behavior, he/she may be ridiculed, arrested, or otherwise pressured into conformity through what Emile Durkheim referred to as __________.

A) cultural constraints
B) cultural relativism
C) cultural penalties
D) ethnocentrism

Question 11

How does the everyday usage of the term "culture" differ from its academic definition?

A) The common usage reflects a desirable quality that can be acquired.
B) The academic definition reflects traits that are only possessed by a segment of the population.
C) The common usage deals only with patterns that have been passed down for generations.
D) The academic definition is narrower than the common usage.

Question 12

What is the conceptual opposite of ethnocentrism?

A) the glorification of other cultures
B) an understanding of the nuances of other cultures
C) thinking your own culture is better than others
D) believing that all cultures are essentially the same

Question 13

Which of the following is a major source of new culture?

A) individual variation
B) peer pressure
C) tradition
D) revolution

Question 14

Individuals have __________, but groups share __________.

A) behavior; culture
B) culture; society
C) society; beliefs
D) beliefs; behavior

Question 15

What is the modal response for a cultural rule?

A) the most frequently encountered response
B) the response that most people report as the ideal
C) the most rarely encountered response
D) the most extreme variation of a response

Question 16

What are the ultimate sources of all cultural change?

A) discovery and invention
B) diffusion and discovery
C) invention and modification
D) modification and diffusion

Question 17

Which of the following is a basic pattern of diffusion?

A) intermediate contact
B) invention
C) historical interaction
D) discovery

Question 18

The ideal cultural traits of a society __________.

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

Question 19

The most powerful transmitter of culture is probably __________.

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

Question 20

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

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

Question 21

Which of the following describes the form of culture change known as diffusion?

A) Many of the foods we eat, such as pasta and chicken, were introduced to us through contact with different cultures around the world.
B) James Hargreaves developed the spinning jenny to increase the efficiency of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution.
C) Your parents teach you the proper way to speak to your elders.
D) Medical experiments and discoveries lead to the cure for an epidemic disease such as polio.

Question 22

Sequoya's idea to create a writing system for the Cherokee, after encountering written English, is an example of __________.

A) stimulus diffusion
B) innovation
C) acculturation
D) discovery

Question 23

Which of the following is an example of consistency of cultural traits?

A) The English drive on the left side of the road, so they also have their steering wheels on the right side of the car.
B) Americans believe that eating dogs is wrong because they are sometimes kept as family pets, so they also avoid eating pigs.
C) The French often allow children to have wine, so they also have high rates of alcoholism.
D) The Japanese diet contains a lot of seafood, so they disapprove of raising a garden for food.

Question 24

Which of the following American norms might be seen as immoral or inferior by someone from another culture?

A) putting a baby to sleep in its own room
B) wearing special clothing for sleep
C) sleeping in a bed
D) sleeping for 6-8 hours each night

Question 25

Which of the following groups is most likely to be an early adopter of innovation?

A) the lower-middle class
B) the wealthy upper class
C) the upper-middle class
D) the very poor

Question 26

The conscious or unconscious pressure for cultural __________ will often produce cultural change.

A) consistency
B) innovation
C) relevance
D) superiority

Question 27

The adoption and later elimination of the sepaade tradition among the Rendille is an example of __________.

A) intentional cultural change
B) acculturation
C) diffusion
D) a maladaptive custom

Question 28

Which of the following behaviors 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 29

What does the concept of cultural integration mean?

A) Various subgroups in the society work together.
B) Cultural elements are constant.
C) Cultural traits that are maladaptive can be made to work with adaptive traits.
D) Cultural elements are a fairly eclectic assortment.

Question 30

Variations in individual behavior are confined within __________ acceptable limits.

A) socially
B) historically
C) legally
D) ethically

Question 31

The !Kung hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari Desert in Africa live in small, nomadic groups and own few material possessions. Anthropologists refer to these cultural traits as __________ that help them survive in their social and physical environment.

A) adaptive customs
B) maladaptive customs
C) assimilations
D) backward traits

Question 32

While there are many negative consequences to globalization, the United Nations has suggested an improvement in __________.

A) literacy rates
B) the spread of disease
C) workers' wages
D) deforestation rates

Question 33

Which of the following is an example of forced acculturation?

A) schools for Native American children
B) the popularity of McDonald's restaurants in Japan
C) teens across Europe watching MTV
D) Inuit hunters using snowmobiles and GPS technology

Question 34

How did early evolutionists tend to think of Western cultures?

A) They viewed Western cultures as being at the most progressive stage of evolution.
B) They believed they were lacking in important knowledge that other cultures already possessed.
C) They were extremely relativistic in their thinking, seeing all cultures as morally equivalent.
D) There was a rift between ethnocentric and relativistic evolutionists at the time.

Question 35

The process of cultural change known as __________ describes a situation in which a subordinate society adopts cultural traits or technologies through contact with a more powerful society, either through force or due to perceived economic or social advantages.

A) acculturation
B) stimulus diffusion
C) unconscious invention
D) enculturation

Question 36

Which of the following statements is true regarding ethics across cultures?

A) All cultures have ethical standards, but what they emphasize varies.
B) All cultures have similar ethical standards.
C) All cultures have identical ethical standards.
D) Some cultures have no ethical standards.

Question 37

Why is hair color not considered a cultural trait?

A) Hair color may be shared by most members of a culture, but it is not a learned trait.
B) There are many different colors of hair within one culture.
C) People learn which hair colors are preferred, but they cannot change their hair color.
D) Hair color is neither learned nor shared throughout the culture.

Question 38

How do anthropologists deal with the range of individual behaviors they meet when trying to describe a culture?

A) They use the variations to define acceptable limits of behavior.
B) They ignore all but the most common few variations.
C) They describe all possible variations instead of looking for patterns.
D) They focus on the most unusual variations and the people involved in them.

Question 39

The Tapirapé of Brazil maintained their tradition of having very small families even in the face of extinction. This is an example of a(n) __________ custom.

A) maladaptive
B) adaptive
C) integrating
D) constraining

Question 40

Often, in the aftermath of violent events such as depopulation, relocation, enslavement, and genocide by dominant powers, deprived peoples have created new cultures in a process called __________.

A) ethnogenesis
B) diasporization
C) acculturation
D) diffusion

Question 41

In what areas of American culture have the most drastic changes of cultural norms taken place in the last generation?

A) sex and marriage
B) economics
C) religious practices
D) our educational system

Question 42

Which of the following illustrates an ideal cultural trait in U.S. society that does not correspond to practical reality?

A) People of all classes and races are equal before the law.
B) Most children will go off to college, marry, and start households of their own.
C) Workers take the weekend off to have a chance to relax.
D) Children call their mothers on Mother's Day.

Question 43

According to Ralph Linton, what is the difference between discovery and invention?

A) Discovery is an addition to knowledge, and invention is a new application of knowledge.
B) Discovery is technological, and invention is ideological.
C) Discovery is ideological, and invention is technological.
D) Discovery is a new application of knowledge, and invention is an addition to knowledge.

Question 44

The strong form of cultural relativism suggests that __________.

A) all patterns of culture are equally valid
B) tolerance should be the mode unless there is strong reason to behave otherwise
C) non-Western cultures are inherently more moral than Western cultures
D) any sort of judgment can cloud accuracy of descriptions

Question 45

What is one social condition that may give rise to rebellion and revolution?

A) threats to recent economic improvements
B) high esteem given to authority
C) decisiveness of government
D) increasing support of the intellectual class

Question 46

Compare and contrast the attitude of ethnocentrism and glorification of other cultures. How can an awareness of these conflicting attitudes lead to more reliable anthropological data?

Question 47

How does material culture differ from the broader concept of culture?

A) It consists of the physical products of customary behavior.
B) It is only present in societies with a market economy.
C) Material culture is related to wealth and high status.
D) Only material culture can be studied through historical records.

Question 48

Outline the major patterns through which cultures change, providing a definition and example for each.

Question 49

How do anthropologists take into account the wide range of behavioral variation seen in any culture? Explain the use of a modal response when describing a culture.

Question 50

Explain how cultural constraints regulate cultural norms by giving specific examples of both direct and indirect cultural constraints common to your own culture.

Question 51

The fact that a new behavior is not likely to become cultural if it has harmful reproductive consequences is consistent with what theory?

A) natural selection
B) cultural relativism
C) optimal foraging
D) historical particularism

Question 52

Some scholars argue that cultural relativists are acting hypocritically by __________.

A) claiming that tolerance is a universal principle
B) pushing democracy on other nations
C) prioritizing non-Western belief systems over Western ones
D) assuming that all cultures have similar ethical systems

Question 53

What is one reason why cultural diffusion is a selective process?

A) The overt form of a trait may have a different meaning for the second culture.
B) Cultures may only allow certain traits to be borrowed by other groups.
C) Technological traits diffuse easily, while ideological traits are much harder to borrow.
D) Diffusion is a slow process, so only a small fragment of cultural traits will be transmitted.

Question 54

Do you believe that cultural relativism prevents anthropologists from finding fault with another culture's practices or from trying to make social change? Why or why not?

Question 55

Why might a superior innovation not be adopted?

A) The costs of adopting the new innovation might exceed the benefits.
B) People may not be intelligent enough to master the new technology.
C) The habits of the old system are more important than finding something that works better.
D) New innovations are generally viewed suspiciously for a while.