Deck 3: Cultural Evolution

Question 1

A key difference between evoked culture and transmitted culture is that

A)the majority of cultural differences are evoked rather than transmitted.
B)evoked culture is more likely found in nonliterate societies,whereas transmitted culture is more common in literate societies.
C)evoked culture reflects more psychological differences,whereas transmitted culture reflects more behavioral differences.
D)evoked culture spreads much quicker than transmitted culture.
E)evoked culture is limited to a specific geographical setting,whereas transmitted culture can move across different ecologies.

Answer 1

evoked culture is limited to a specific geographical setting,whereas transmitted culture can move across different ecologies.

Question 2

Whereas _____________ describe(s)explanations using factors that occurred a long time ago,_____________ describe(s)explanations using factors that have direct and immediate effects.

A)distal causes;proximal causes
B)evoked culture;transmitted culture
C)direct causes;indirect causes
D)biological evolution;cultural evolution
E)vertical transmission;horizontal transmission

Answer 2

distal causes;proximal causes

Question 3

The finding that the prevalence of parasites in a region correlates positively with the degree that people value physical attractiveness is argued to be evidence for

A)theory of mind.
B)transmitted culture.
C)the ratchet effect.
D)the Flynn effect.
E)evoked culture.

Answer 3

evoked culture.

Question 4

Based on research about cultural transmission,which of the following YouTube advertisements is the LEAST likely to be spread to other people?

A)a car commercial that was extremely weird and did not feature any cars
B)a home renovation company's advertisement that contains useful tips on how to do home repairs
C)a fraternity's recruitment advertisement that is full of racial stereotypes
D)an insurance company's advertisement that induces a lot of fearful emotions for the audience
E)a mayor's election campaign video using clear,succinct points describing her platform

Question 5

Army recruits are assigned randomly into specific sleeping quarters,where they do a lot of socializing during break time and at night.The political and religious attitudes of the recruits were surveyed before they were assigned sleeping quarters,and then again after several weeks of training.The generals found that the recruits' political and religious ideas tended to form clusters based on sleeping quarters.Which of the following can best explain this situation?

A)Useful ideas spread more easily.
B)Minimally intuitive ideas are more transmittable.
C)People in close quarters and contact tend to influence each other.
D)Early conditions have disproportionate influences.
E)Small differences lead to large effects.

Question 6

In a gardening competition,the Martian's steel tools allowed them to easily defeat the Earthlings,who used wooden tools.Which of the following best describes why the Martians defeated the Earthlings?

A)geographic variation
B)distal cause
C)ecological variation
D)proximal cause
E)Martians are smarter than Earthlings.

Question 7

A few townsfolk begin a movement promoting social harmony.Over time,they expand the movement by interacting with other townsfolk.Soon,they have influenced the whole town to join in the movement.This best illustrates which of the following?

A)Shweder's definition of cultural psychology
B)Triandis's individualism-collectivism model
C)Latané's dynamic social impact theory
D)cultural evolution
E)vertical cultural transmission

Question 8

Ecology and sex roles are related in the sense that

A)men strive to change the surrounding ecology more than women.
B)in harsher climates,there are more egalitarian sex roles than in more benign climates.
C)cold weather is associated with increases in aggression and warfare among men.
D)egalitarian sex roles are more common where food is plentiful and easily acquired.
E)the most chauvinistic societies tend to be in areas with the most variable rainfall.

Question 9

According to Jared Diamond,why were the germs brought by the Spaniards so much deadlier to the Incans than the Incan germs were to the Spaniards?

A)The Spaniards had developed cleaner habits than the Incans.
B)The Incans lived closer together,so the Spanish germs were transmitted far more easily.
C)The Spaniards had lived in close proximity to domesticated animals for much longer than the Incans.
D)The large Eurasian continent allowed the Spaniards to be exposed to a larger variety of germs than the relatively smaller South American continent of the Incans.
E)The Spanish diet contained more antibiotic agents than the Incan diet.

Question 10

Which of the following is an example of a proximal cause?

A)Two psychologically different groups of immigrants settled in two different areas of the same country.Eight centuries later,those two areas still exhibit the same psychological differences.
B)The presence of dairy farming in Europe led people to develop a genetic mutation that digests lactose in milk,while the absence of dairy farming in East Asia meant people did not develop this mutation,leading to lactose intolerance.
C)Living along a continental axis allowed people in the Fertile Crescent to engage in agriculture.
D)An Egyptian pharaoh brought in horse-drawn chariots,which allowed his army to out-maneuver and defeat his enemy in battle.
E)The modern hammer that has evolved over millennia is based on the original rocks that prehistoric humans used as hammers.

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT a plausible response to the argument that cultural evolution is somehow better than biological evolution?

A)Cultural evolution can occur faster than biological evolution.
B)Biological evolution chooses what has a selective advantage to pass on;cultural evolution does not.
C)Cultural evolution allows for more ideas to be transmitted.
D)Biological evolution is more faithful in transmission than cultural evolution.
E)Cultural evolution allows for more ways of transmission than biological evolution.

Question 12

Which of the following does NOT show the importance of transmitted culture?

A)The Nuer and Dinka share the same ecological conditions,but they have widely different cultures.
B)Latin American culture is very similar to indigenous cultures of South and Central America.
C)The crew of Captain Sir John Franklin survived in the cold for two years without the help of the natives.
D)Evoked culture speaks to what has been biologically encoded into us,but transmitted culture does not.
E)Roald Amundsen,the Norwegian explorer,lived two years in the Arctic due to the knowledge given to him by the Netsilik.

Question 13

East Asia is at a similar latitude to a region with many easily domesticated plants and animals.These early conditions benefit East Asian cultures such that they propelled these cultures to prosperity today.What is this scenario an example of?

A)proximal causes
B)transmitted culture
C)distal causes
D)evoked culture
E)epidemiology of ideas

Question 14

Which of the following is true in comparing biological evolution with cultural evolution?

A)Both types of evolution occur extremely quickly,within a single generation.
B)Biological evolution is faithful,while cultural evolution is not faithful.
C)Both forms of evolution only result in greater numbers of surviving offspring.
D)Biological evolution is quicker than cultural evolution because the possibility of horizontal cultural transmission from multiple people overwhelms learners.
E)Biological evolution leads to more useful ideas than cultural evolution does.

Question 15

The considerable cultural differences between the large Nuer tribes and the smaller,less powerful Dinka tribes of southern Sudan indicates that

A)the effects of transmitted culture are substantial.
B)there are few existential universals.
C)evoked culture is a stronger force than transmitted culture.
D)there is much genetic variability,even within regions.
E)cultures take on identities that contrast them with their neighbors.

Question 16

In biological evolution,the unit of transmission is a gene.In cultural evolution,the unit of transmission is an idea.Comparing biological and cultural evolution,which of the following is FALSE?

A)The unit of transmission is copied with a high degree of fidelity in one type of evolution,but not the other.
B)The unit of transmission in both types of evolution enjoy a selective advantage.
C)In only one type of evolution can its unit of transmission be transmitted horizontally.
D)Mutations are more common with one type of evolution than the other.
E)The unit of transmission for both types of evolution must be adaptive to be transmitted.

Question 17

Dynamic social impact theory can explain why

A)cultural norms for manners have changed over time.
B)residents of one community have more conservative political attitudes than residents of a nearby community.
C)Pizarro and a small band of Spanish soldiers were able to conquer the Incan empire.
D)cultural evolution can occur much faster than biological evolution.
E)people score higher on IQ tests today than they did a generation ago.

Question 18

Takeshi discovers a lot of tips and tricks to give him an easier time playing his favorite computer game,which he proceeds to tell all of his gaming buddies.Which of the following does this best illustrate?

A)pluralistic ignorance
B)emotional ideas spread more easily
C)horizontal transmission
D)the autokinetic effect
E)vertical transmission

Question 19

Which of the following depicts an evoked culture?

A)A culture promotes harmony with the environment to appease the gods.
B)Males from a village in the West Indies find thick lips to be attractive because thick lips evoke the most physiological arousal from males in the village.
C)Tribe members learn from recent fatalities not to eat red salamanders.
D)A culture uses the possession of meat as a status symbol due to the abundance of vegetation.
E)Hockey players learn from the media that it is cowardly to fight wearing helmets.

Question 20

What is a proximal cause for why a small group of Spaniards was able to conquer the Incan empire?

A)The Spaniards had better weapons than the Incans.
B)The Spaniards had more domesticated animals than the Incans.
C)The Eurasian continent stretches largely from east to west,whereas the Americas stretch largely from north to south.
D)The Incans had few species of cultivatable plants in contrast to the Spaniards.
E)The Spaniards lived closer to livestock for thousands of years,unlike the Incans.

Question 21

Which of the following is true about cultural change in the United States?

A)Americans today score higher on the SAT than they did a generation ago.
B)All intelligence quotient (IQ)tests reveal trends that Americans have higher IQs today than they did a generation ago.
C)"Culture-bound" IQ tests have shown increases in American intelligence over the past generation,but "culture-free" IQ tests have not shown any changes.
D)IQ increased among Americans in the first half of the twentieth century,but has been decreasing since.
E)None of the statements are true.

Question 22

The textbook describes the relationship between IQ changes across time and television viewing as showing

A)decreases in verbal intelligence but increases in problem-solving intelligence.
B)decreases in problem-solving intelligence but increases in pattern-recognition skills.
C)increases in intelligence for the elderly,but decreases in intelligence for children and adolescents.
D)increases in all kinds of intelligence for everyone.
E)decreases in all kinds of intelligence for everyone.

Question 23

The kinds of ideas that are best remembered over time are those that

A)are intuitive.
B)are counterintuitive.
C)are mostly intuitive,with the occasional counterintuitive idea included.
D)are mostly counterintuitive,with the occasional intuitive idea included.
E)initially appear counterintuitive but later seem intuitive.

Question 24

Which of the following is NOT a proposed explanation for the Flynn effect?

A)People are getting more nutrition in their diets now than before.
B)The modern world is becoming increasingly complex,requiring more learning and problem-solving skills.
C)Modern popular culture has become more challenging for consumers than in previous generations.
D)IQ scores have been increasing around the world over the last century.
E)The amount of education required for jobs has increased for both men and women.

Question 25

Which of the following is an example of pluralistic ignorance?

A)Boston continues to reflect its Puritan origins,whereas Philadelphia continues to reflect its Quaker origins.
B)the increasing globalization of world cultures
C)Baseball in Japan retains some distinctive Japanese elements.
D)the binge drinking habits among underage college students
E)Southern Italy remains less civic compared with northern Italy in ways that reflect the regional differences that were evident eight hundred years ago.

Question 26

Your friends are debating whether culture has been changing or not over the last few decades.Which of the following responses is NOT supported by research?

A)It has been changing-people are scoring higher on the Raven's Matrices Test.
B)It has not been changing-the slave trade that occurred centuries ago in Africa still affects their trust in others until this day.
C)It has been changing-greater intercultural contact has changed all cultures that interact with each other.
D)It has not been changing-collectivistic cultures have,overall,remained just as collectivistic as they were decades ago.
E)It has been changing-there has been greater tribalism over the last several decades.

Question 27

Justify why the cultural practice of eating seal blubber among many indigenous populations in the Arctic is both an evoked culture and a transmitted culture.

Question 28

Your professor wants to upload a video of talking horses,and he wants it to go "viral" (i.e. ,spread very quickly to many people).Based on the different factors that cause ideas to spread,give examples of what the video would need to include for it to have the highest likelihood of spreading.

Question 29

Pluralistic ignorance is likely to lead to

A)rapid cultural evolution.
B)an overall drop in IQ scores.
C)persistence of particular cultural practices.
D)intraregional cultural variation.
E)accurate perceptions of the popularity of cultural norms.

Question 30

Minimally counterintuitive ideas tend to persist within a culture because

A)they do not violate expectations at all.
B)religions make use of minimally counterintuitive ideas.
C)they tend to be remembered more than intuitive ideas.
D)they are completely outlandish statements.
E)they are useful and emotional ideas.

Question 31

On Planet Belia,two civilizations (the Edinia and the Elash)have coexisted for centuries in the same environmental context.Both civilizations have marriage rituals (for this question,assume that marriage rituals can only be either monogamous or polygamous).You know that Edinians believe that polygamy is generally better than monogamy,so there are more polygamists than monogamists in Edinia.To determine whether evoked culture or transmitted culture plays a bigger role in affecting marriage rituals,you visit Edinia and Elash and try to find the proportion of marriages that are monogamous versus polygamous.Draw a bar graph of what your data would look like if evoked culture plays a bigger role than transmitted culture.

Question 32

Which of the following is true about cultural change in the United States?

A)Elderly Americans are less socially engaged now than they were forty years ago.
B)On average,Americans are less likely to belong to formal organizations than they were forty years ago.
C)Americans socialize more now than they did forty years ago.
D)Americans are more trusting now than they were forty years ago.
E)Few Americans bowl now,whereas forty years ago the vast majority of American adults bowled.

Question 33

Vancouver has many different neighborhood areas,including Richmond and Strathcona.Richmond is politically more conservative,while Strathcona is politically more liberal.Create an account based on dynamic social impact theory to explain how these different neighborhoods seem to have different forms of political culture.

Question 34

While chatting with your friend,she says that people nowadays have less intelligence than people used to.Evaluate whether this claim is true-be sure to use empirical data to address this issue.

Question 35

It is not at all unusual for the officers at Police Station 54 to observe their colleagues using confrontational interview techniques.Even though they do not personally like the technique,many officers believe that the practice is widely approved of by others and expected of them.This is an example of

A)pluralistic ignorance.
B)fundamental attribution error.
C)a contemporary legend.
D)conformity.
E)the autokinetic effect.