CH 2 CULTURE

Which of the following statements describes a case revealing the integrated nature of culture?

As more American women attended college and obtained jobs in the workplace, beliefs about marriage and divorce changed.

Which of the following examples best illustrates the relationship between human biological needs and culture?

Biology requires that humans eat a certain amount each day, but culture teaches us what we want to eat, when we want it, and how to eat it.

is the traditions and customs, transmitted through learning, shared among a group of people, that form and guide their behavior and form their beliefs of what everything means

CULTURE

culture is ideas based on cultural learning and symbols; absorb and internalize the controlled rules, instructions, recipes and plans of a culture

Clifford Geertz:

Although an individual resident of a southern city in the United States may not like to eat grits and cornbread, these foods are considered a part of southern culture. What does this reveal about culture?

Culture is a shared attribute.

Which of the following statements best describes culture?

Culture teaches us how to satisfy our biological needs.

What does it mean when one says that culture is integrated?

Cultures are interrelated systems of thought, beliefs, and behavior.

: process by which a child learns his or her culture

Enculturation

True or false: A human child is born with culture.

False

zoological family that includes fossil and living humans

HOMINDAE

member of hominid family; any fossil or living human, chimp, or gorilla

Hominid

: hominids excluding the African apes; all the human species that have ever existed

Hominins

Animals such as wolves learn behavior patterns, such as hunting techniques. What makes human cultural learning different from that?

Human culture is based on ideas shared through symbols.

Which of the following best describes how a government policy that promotes prenatal health care and large families could become maladaptive?

It could encourage overpopulation.

According to Sir Edward Tylor's century-old definition of culture, what is the critical defining feature of culture?

It includes patterns of behavior acquired by people as members of society.

Which anthropologist stressed that culture originated when human ancestors developed the ability to use symbols, to make tools and clothing, and to create meaning in art and language?

Leslie White

Who was the earliest anthropologist to stress that culture is symbolic

Leslie White

culture originated when our ancestors acquired the ability to use symbols—to originate and bestow meaning on a thing or event

Leslie White

Which of the following examples best describes how culture influences the ways in which humans interact with the natural environment?

Science, invention, and discovery are parts of culture and enable humans to control many natural limitations.

Whose definition of culture includes "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society"?

Sir Edward Tylor

: signs that have no necessary or natural connection with things for which they stand cultural learning

Symbols

True or false: Adaptive cultural traits can become maladaptive traits.

True

True or false: Chimpanzees and gorillas are the closest relatives to the human species.

True

What is a symbol?

anything verbal or nonverbal that stands for something else

Generality:

culture pattern or trait that exists in some but not all societies

Hip-hop music has spread through popular culture and the media from urban America to China and Japan. Which mechanism of cultural change does this phenomenon represent?

diffusion

In the United States today we wear pajamas (which originated in ancient Persia), use mirrors (which originated in ancient Egypt), and eat with forks (which originated in ancient Rome). What mechanism of cultural change does this represent?

diffusion

Particularity:

distinctive or unique culture trait, pattern, or integration

Which of the following is the term anthropologists use to describe the process by which a child learns culture?

enculturation

A child begins to learn cultural rules and habits, such as how to take turns speaking, how far apart to stand, and when to make eye contact, through a process known as

enculturation.

Which of the following do anthropologists consider when studying human diversity in time and space?

generalized traits universal traits particular traits and patterns

What is the term used to describe today's worldwide connectedness brought about by modern communication systems, travel, international trade, and migration?

globalization

Which of the following is an example of a symbol?

golden arches to identify a hamburger chain

Which term refers to the group that leads to humans but not to African great apes and encompasses all of the human species that have ever existed?

hominins

Which of the following is an example of international culture?

marriage

People in Germany tend to be on-time to meetings, whereas those in Brazil generally run late. This is an example of ______ culture.

national

Excluded from the list of natural limitations that culture has allowed humans to overcome is

natural disasters.

Primates have ______________ cultural abilities

rudimentary

Universal:

something that exists in every culture

Natural limitations

such as diseases, sexual potency > prevent and cure; We have evolved with Culture as an essential component in our survival.

Children learn to avoid fire by being told that it is dangerous, while animals learn to avoid fire by discovering that it burns them. The difference between the two is that human cultural learning depends on

the capacity to use symbols

When studying human diversity in time and space, anthropologists distinguish among the ______, which are features found in every culture, the ______, which are common to several but not all groups, and the ______, which are unique to certain cultural traditions.

universal; general; particular

Globalization is defined as

worldwide connectedness, involving production, communication, and technology.

HOW WE DIFFER FROM OTHER PRIMATES

• Cooperation and sharing are much more developed among humans • Other differences: - Human females lack a visible estrus cycle, and ovulation is concealed - Humans mate throughout the year - Human pair bonds for mating are more exclusive and durable than those of chimps - Humans have exogamy (marriage) and kinship systems and maintain lifelong ties with sons and daughters

diffusion v. Inheritance v. Domination

• Cultural borrowing (diffusion) the spread o f English • Inheritance from a common cultural ancestor • Domination, as in colonial rule

• Diffusion: and its 3 types • Acculturation: • Independent invention:

• Diffusion: borrowing of cultural traits between societies/ cultures = not truly isolated - Direct: trade, intermarry, wage war - Forced: subjugates and imposes its cotums on the dominated group - Indirect: A trades with B & B also trades with C ; A and C are connected via B • Acculturation: exchange of cultural features between groups in firsthand contact but each group remains distinct • Independent invention: process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems

• Ethnocentrism: • Cultural relativism: • Human rights: • Cultural rights: • IPR:

• Ethnocentrism: tendency to view one's own culture as superior and to use one's own standards and values in judging outsiders • Cultural relativism: idea that behavior should be evaluated NOT by outside standards but in the context of the culture in which it occurs • Human rights: rights based on justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions - inalienable (nations cannot abridge or terminate them) and international • Cultural rights: rights vested in religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies; language, child rearing, economic base of country • IPR: intellectual property rights; an indigenous group's collective knowledge and its applications our theirs and they get to decide whether to share & how $; cultural right

National culture: International culture: Subcultures:

• National culture: cultural features shared by citizens of the same nation • International culture: cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries • Spread though learning, traits can spread through borrowing = DIFFUSION Subcultures:different cultural traditions associated with subgroups in the same complex society - region, ethnicity, language, class and religion