Anthropology Exam Questions
An ethical approach to anthropological research emphasizes
responsibilities toward the host country and the people being studied
Until the early 1900s, anthropologists believed that their role was to observe indigenous ways of life, interview elders, and assemble indigenously-made objects because those lifeways would soon disappear-an approach referred to as the
salvage paradigm
Even though anthropologists use parts of the scientific method, some don't see what they do as science because
the complexity of social behavior prevents any completely objective analysis of human culture
An evolutionary perspective would be most likely to explain colonialism as
the natural abilities of more civilized people to control less civilized people
The primary ethical responsibility of anthropologists is to
the people or species they study
The comparative method refers to
the practice of comparing two or more cultures
A relativistic perspective on the meanings of Coca-Cola in Tzotzil Maya communities in
those meanings are only sensible within a culturally specific set of ideas about religion and spirituality
Which of the following is the most significant aspect of the salvage paradigm?
anthropologists need to collect information from societies before they die out
The subfield of anthropology that studies human evolution, including human genetics and human nutrition, is called
biological anthropology
When did anthropology emerge as an academic discipline
1800's
If _________ is food, then _______ is a meal.
Mary Douglass, language and sentence
A qualitative approach to studying social life in your university would emphasize all of the following except
A) prolonged and intensive participation and observation in the community B) the construction of statistical models to explain activities in the community* C) the use of field notes, recordings, images, and documents to understand life in the community D) your own subjective impressions
__________ is an approach in anthropology that directly addresses issues of social justice, such as poor health and political disempowerment
Action anthropology
The thinker who developed evolutionary theory in the nineteenth century was
Charles Darwin
Assuming your culture's way of doing things is the best is called
Ethnocentrism
________ refers to the adaptive changes that organisms make across generations
Evolution
Anthropologists have always approached a problem by specializing in one of the four subfields
False
Anthropologists like E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Renato Rosaldo do not see cultural anthropology as a science
False
Contemporary cultural anthropologists rank societies along an evolutionary scale from "primitive" to "advanced" to categorize human diversity
False
Historical archaeologists excavate sites where written historical documentation exists that provides an accurate description of the way the people actually lived
False
The scientific method is a research method in pursuit of ultimate truths
False
What prompted intellectuals to start systematically explaining the differences among people?
Industrial Revolution
A key concern in the 1850s that shaped the discipline of anthropology was the emergence of a new scientific theory called "evolution."
True
Diversity, defined anthropologically, refers to both multiplicity and variety, which is not the same thing as "difference."
True
There is rarely any guessing involved in the development of theories because they are tested repeatedly
True
When qualitative methods are employed, the researchers themselves are often used as the research instrument
True
A key principle of the holistic perspective developed by Franz Boas is
a goal of synthesizing the entire context of human experience
The practical use of anthropological knowledge to address real-world problems, sometimes called anthropology's "fifth field," is
applied anthropology
The subfield of anthropology that studies the material remains of past cultures is called
archaeology
A quantitative approach to studying the archaeological past would be most interested in
building and testing hypotheses by collecting, classifying, and measuring the remains of past cultures
The practice of anthropologists explaining their research and being clear about the risks involved is
called informed consent
The historical practice of more powerful countries claiming possession of less powerful ones that was a driving force in anthropology
colonialism
The subfield of anthropology that studies human diversity, beliefs, and practices is called
cultural anthropology
The moral and intellectual principle that one should withhold judgment about seemingly strange or exotic beliefs and practices is called
cultural relativism
A key feature of the ______ is that it refers to the taken-for-granted notions, rules, moralities, and behaviors within a social group that feel natural
culture concept
Some anthropologists believe that the ethical principle of ______ is not enough, and that anthropologists have a responsible to actively "do good" in a society
do not harm
When cultural anthropologists live in societies for extended periods of time observing social life, they are doing
fieldwork
Diversity defined anthropologically
focuses on multiplicity and variety
Linguistic anthropologists study
how our language evolved, how our mouths form words, and how indigenous people classify their social worlds
A key element of the scientific method, which both explains things and guides research, is
hypothesis
What process involves shifting from an agricultural economy to a factory-based one?
industrialization
Can anybody own culture?
involves the processes in which people comprehend, shape, and act in the world around them
During anthropological fieldwork, cultural anthropologists
learn the local language, record people's economic transactions, and study how environmental changes affect agriculture
The subfield of anthropology that studies language use is called
linguistic anthropology
Ethics, defined as ________, are important to anthropologists
moral questions of right and wrong
The process by which inheritable traits are passed along to offspring because they are better suited to the environment is referred to as
natural selection
During colonialism, the perception of non-Western peoples as primitive or savage is referred to as the process
othering
Western colonial powers understood the different customs and cultures of the people they colonized as
proof of their primitive nature
The application of the comparative method in his research in Papua New Guinea led coauthor Robert Welsch to focus on
published and unpublished accounts of mask collectors who visited different villages
Research that involves interviews, observations, images, objects, and words is a
qualitative study
Techniques that classify features of a phenomenon and count, measure, and construct statistical models are collecting and analyzing
quantitative data