Anthropology Exam 2 Part 1
Which of the following statements about enculturation is FALSE?
It is the exchange of cultural features that results when two or more groups come into consistent firsthand contact.
Culture can be adaptive or maladaptive. It is maladaptive when
cultural traits, patterns, and inventions threaten the group's continued survival and reproduction and thus its very existence.
People must eat, but culture teaches us what, when, and how to do so. This is an example of how
culture takes the natural biological urges we share with other animals and teaches us how to express them in particular ways.
Based on his observation that contact between neighboring tribes had existed since humanity's beginnings and covered enormous areas, Franz Boas argued that
cultures should not be treated as isolated phenomena.
This chapter's description of how humans cope with low oxygen pressure in high altitudes illustrates
human capacities for cultural and biological adaptation, the latter involving both genetic and physiological adaptations.
If an anthropologist proposes an explanation for something but it has yet to be verified, he or she has made a(n)
hypothesis.
Linguistic anthropology
includes sociolinguistics, descriptive linguistics, and the study of the biological basis for speech.
Which of the following LEAST explains the existence of cultural generalities?
isolationism
Human rights are seen as inalienable. This means that
nations cannot abridge or terminate them.
As humans organize their lives and adapt to different environments, our abilities to learn, think symbolically, use language, and employ tools and other products
rest on certain features of human biology that make culture, which is not itself biological, possible.
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined culture as ideas based on cultural learning and symbols. For anthropologist Leslie White, culture originated when our ancestors acquired the ability to use symbols. What is a symbol?
something verbal or nonverbal within a particular language or culture that comes to stand for something else, with no necessary or natural connection to the thing for which it stands
Something, verbal or nonverbal, that stands for something else is known as a
symbol.
How are cultural rights different from human rights?
Cultural rights are vested in groups, not in individuals.
What is one of the most fundamental key assumptions that anthropologists share?
A comparative, cross-cultural approach is essential to study the human condition.
Today's global economy and communications link all contemporary people, directly or indirectly, in the modern world system. People must now cope with forces generated by progressively larger systems—the region, the nation, and the world. For anthropologists studying contemporary forms of adaptation, why might this be a challenge?
According to Marcus and Fischer (1986), "The cultures of world peoples need to be constantly rediscovered as these people reinvent them in changing historical circumstances."
What do anthropologists mean when they say culture is shared?
Culture is an attribute of individuals as members of groups.
Which of the following statements about culture is TRUE?
It is acquired by humans as members of society through the process of enculturation.
What does it mean to say that humans use culture instrumentally?
People use culture to fulfill their basic biological needs for food, drink, shelter, comfort, and reproduction.
Which of the following statements about theories is the most accurate?
Theories provide explanations for associations.
Which of the following statements about subcultures is FALSE?
They are mutually exclusive; individuals may not participate in more than one subculture.
Anthropology may improve psychological studies of human behavior by contributing
a cross-cultural perspective on models of human psychology.
The American Anthropological Association has formally acknowledged a public service role by recognizing that anthropology has which two dimensions?
academic anthropology and applied anthropology
Which of the following is an example of independent invention, the process by which people in different societies have innovated and changed in similar but independent ways?
agriculture
Cultural anthropologists carry out their fieldwork in
all kinds of societies.
Regarding human capacity for culture, anthropologists agree that
although individuals differ in their emotional and intellectual capacities, all human populations have equivalent capacities for culture.
All of the following are evidence of the tendency to view culture as a process EXCEPT
analysis that attempts to establish boundaries between cultures.
Archaeologists studying sunken ships off the coast of Florida or analyzing the content of modern garbage are examples of how
archaeologists study the culture of historical and even living peoples.
Primatology is a specialty within
biological anthropology.
The Makah, a tribe that lives near the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the Olympic Peninsula, see themselves as whalers and continue to identify themselves spiritually with whales. Their ongoing struggle to maintain their traditional way of life, which involves whale hunting, demonstrates how
contemporary indigenous groups have to grapple with multiple levels of culture, contestation, and political regulation.
What process is most responsible for the existence of international culture?
cultural diffusion
Over time, humans have become increasingly dependent on which of the following in order to cope with the range of environments they have occupied in time and space?
cultural means of adaptation
Although rap music originated in the United States, it is now popular all over the world. Which of the following mechanisms of cultural change is responsible for this?
diffusion
Which of the following is a mechanism of cultural change?
diffusion
The human capacity for culture has an evolutionary basis that extends back perhaps 3 million years. This date corresponds to
early toolmakers, whose products survive in the archaeological record.
Applied anthropology
encompasses any use of the knowledge and/or techniques of its four subfields to identify, assess, and solve practical problems.
What is the process by which children learn a particular cultural tradition?
enculturation
The tendency to view one's own culture as superior and to use one's own standards and values in judging others is called
ethnocentrism.
What component of cultural anthropology is comparative and focused on building upon our understanding of how cultural systems work?
ethnology
Ethnography is the
fieldwork component of cultural anthropology.
Which of the following is a cultural generality?
the nuclear family
There are two meanings of globalization: globalization as fact and process, and globalization as ideology and contested policy. What is the primary and neutral meaning of globalization as it is applicable to anthropology?
the spread and connectedness of production, communication, and technologies across the world
Which of the following best describes biological anthropology?
the study of human biological diversity
What is anthropology?
the study of humans around the world and through time
Why does this chapter on culture include a section that describes similarities and differences between humans and apes, our closest relatives?
to emphasize culture's evolutionary basis
What are cultural particularities?
traits unique to a given culture, not shared with others
