Non-Western medicine does not maintain a sharp distinction between biological and
psychological illnesses.
With unilineal descent, one’s lineage affiliation is ascribed at birth, but with ambilineal
descent, lineage affiliation is more fluid, because each member chooses his or her own
descent group.
A fiscal system includes the judges, laws, and courts that resolve conflicts.
Diglossia refers to linguistic groups, like those in Papua New Guinea and Australia, that
distinguish between only two colors: black and white or dark and light.
Humanity (Homo sapiens) lacks distinct races, because human populations have not
been isolated enough from one another to develop into discrete groups.
The reason there are more modern-day “Rosie the Riveters” is that modern industry is
even more physically demanding than it was during World War II.
Because there are so many anthropologists in the United States, the distinction between
emic and etic does not apply to American culture.
Adding together men’s and women’s subsistence activities and their domestic work,
men tend to work more hours than women do.
In this chapter, an alternative to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that cultural
changes lead to changes in language.
With polyandry, a woman takes more than one husband at one time.
A nuclear family includes ego, ego’s parents, and ego’s grandparents.
Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, with the
number of wives a man has serving as an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.
Development anthropology is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social
issues in, and the cultural dimension of, moral development.
Mass media can play an important role is constructing and maintaining national and
ethnic identities.
The term nation has been used to refer to an ethnic group that shares a religion,
language, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship.
Art and religion are similar, because both refer to aspects of culture that are of more
than ordinary significance.
Music is one of the most social kinds of artistic expression.
Biomedicine, which aims to link an illness to scientifically-demonstrated agents that
bear no personal malice toward their victims, is an example of naturalistic medicine.
Anthropologists agree that a comparative, cross-cultural approach is unnecessary as
long as researchers are diligent in their work.
Weber argued that without Catholic ethics and values, capitalism and industrialism
would have never spread beyond England.
The market principle dominates economic activities in band-level foraging societies.
Traditionally, ethnographers have tried to understand the whole of a particular culture.
Some researchers have proposed that early humans with a biological penchant for
music may have been able to live more effectively in social groups, thus conferring an
adaptive advantage to this penchant.
“Transgender” and “XX Intersex” are interchangeable terms referring to individuals
with external genitals that are incompletely formed, ambiguous, or female.
The U.S. and Canadian governments use the same racial categories in their census.
As an academic discipline, anthropology falls under both the social sciences and the
humanities.
Witch hunts are an example of how religion can be used to limit deviant social behavior
by instilling strong motivations to behave properly.
Linguistic stratification can occur between dialects when one is considered a prestige
dialect, as is the case with High German and Low German, and with Standard English
(SE) and African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
In tribal societies, unlike industrial ones, marriage entails only an agreement between
the people getting married; descent groups play only a minor role.
Hypodescent in the United States automatically determines the race of a child whose
parents belong to different racial groups.
Much of the history of anthropology has been about the roles and relative prominence
of culture and the individual.
Shamans are full-time religious practitioners generally found in state-level societies.
Cultural relativists believe that a culture should be judged only according to the
standards and traditions of that culture and not according to the standards of other
cultural traditions.
Women in matrilineal societies tend to occupy elevated status positions.
Royal endogamy among Hawaiians functioned to limit the number of conflicts about
royal successionan explanation that serves as an example of the latent function of a
social custom.
Homogamy is the practice of marrying within a culturally prescribed group to which
one does not belong.
Mass production has led to critical consumption as people are forced to make careful
decisions regarding what is needed and what is excess.
Applied anthropology encompasses any use of the knowledge and/or techniques of its
four subfields to identify, assess, and solve theoretical problems.
Focal vocabularies are found only in non-Western societies like the Eskimo and the
Nuer.
The elites of archaic states restricted access to sumptuary goods.
What is communitas?
A.a social inequality that is accepted even by those who are less privileged
B.a collective liminality
C.anxiety
D.the Latin word for mana
E.the supernatural
Evangelical Protestantism is experiencing rapid growth in all of the following regions
EXCEPT
A.the Middle East and North Africa.
B.sub-Saharan Africa.
C.Europe.
D.Latin America.
E.Brazil.
What is the name of the political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a
territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time?
A.apartheid
B.colonialism
C.alienation
D.petty capitalism
E.industrialization
What is a mode of production?
A.a postindustrial adaptive strategy, such as commercial agriculture or international
mercantilism
B.the land, labor, technology, and capital of production
C.the way a society’s social relations are organized to produce the labor necessary for
generating the society’s subsistence and energy needs
D.whether a society is foraging, horticulturalist, or agriculturalist
E.the cultural aspect of any given economy, such as changing fashions in the textile and
clothing industry
What term does anthropologist Fredrik Barth use to refer to a society that combines
ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization, and the economic interdependence of those
groups?
A.pluralism
B.broad-spectrum subsistence
C.plural society
D.multicultural
E.assimilationist
What did Bronislaw Malinowski mean when he referred to everyday cultural patterns as
“the imponderabilia of native life and of typical behavior?”
A.Features of culture such as distinctive smells, noises people make, how they cover
their mouths when they eat, and how they gaze at each other are so fundamental that
natives take them for granted but are there for the ethnographer to describe and make
sense of.
B.Everyday cultural patterns are full of senseless cultural “noise,” and it is the
anthropologist’s job to get at the truly valuable behaviors that distinguish one culture
from another.
C.Everyday cultural patterns of native life can best be studied by asking key informants
to explain them.
D.Features of everyday culture are, at first, imponderable, but as the ethnographer
builds rapport, their logic and functional value in society become clear.
E.Everyday cultural patterns are important but so numerous that their detailed
description should not be included in the main body of an ethnographic study.
The growth of a market for sugar in Europe spurred
A.a tremendous expansion in the strength of independent indigenous nations of Mexico
and South America.
B.the development of a transatlantic slave trade.
C.the movement of sugar-producing nations from the periphery to the core of the world
system.
D.the movement of capitalism, once a cultural trait specific to New Guinea (where
sugar was first domesticated), to the rest of the world.
E.a long-term improvement in the distribution of wealth among the rural peasantry of
England.
Which of the following statements about theories is NOT true?
A.Scientists evaluate theories through the method of falsification.
B.A theory is an explanatory framework that helps us understand why something exists.
C.Predictions from theories are disproved rather than proved.
D.Theories apply only to linguistic and biological phenomena.
E.Scientists accept theories that have not been disproved.
In a study assessing the effects of television on behavior, attitudes, and values, Kottak
and a team of researchers found that
A.television exposure has a greater impact on behavior, attitudes, and values in the
United States than in Brazil.
B.the claim that television exposure affects people’s behavior, attitudes, and values is
overstated.
C.television exposure inevitably leads to a decrease in social interaction, regardless of
the culture.
D.Brazilians watch telenovelas because they see in these programs the traditions of
their culture vividly represented and valued.
E.people’s ideas about proper family size are influenced as they see, day after day,
nuclear families smaller than the traditional ones in their town.
According to anthropologist Ann Stoler, the economic determinants of gender status
include
A.the level of interest rates and the price of oil.
B.controlling one’s own and others’ tendency toward overconsumption.
C.free will and overcoming ideas that associate sin with the desires of the flesh.
D.free will and overcoming ideas that split the mind and body.
E.freedom or autonomy in terms of disposing of one’s labor and its fruits, and social
power: control over the lives, labor, and produce of others.
Which of the following is NOT true about the modern world system?
A.The distinction between bourgeoisie and proletariat has disappeared.
B.The contrast between capitalists and propertyless workers is a worldwide
phenomenon.
C.Stratification systems are not simple and dichotomous.
D.There is a growing middle class of skilled and professional workers.
E.Intermediate occupations create opportunities for social mobility.
Contrast two of the following as political regulators: A) sodalities based on age and
gender; B) village headmen; C) village councils; D) big men; and E) pantribal
sodalities.
Answer:Answers will vary
What changes did workers instigate in response to industrialization in England?
A.Workers launched a proletarian revolution.
B.Workers barred women and children from working in factories.
C.Workers won the right to control production.
D.Workers organized to protected their interest.
E.Workers demanded the 8-hour work day and the Sabbath off.
Besides animismand sometimes coexisting with it in the same societythere is a view of
the supernatural as a domain of raw impersonal power, or force, that people can control
under certain conditions. This conception of the supernatural is particularly prominent
in Melanesia. Melanesians refer to this force as
A.taboo.
B.magic.
C.good (or bad) luck.
D.The Force.
E.mana.
Among the Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil, as in many societies with unilineal
descent, which of the following is true?
A.Marriage between parallel cousins is preferred, whereas marriage between cross
cousins is considered incest.
B.Marriage between cross cousins is preferred; marriage between parallel cousins is
considered incest.
C.Marriage between first cousins is preferred, but marriage between second cousins is
considered incest.
D.Marriage between sororate cousins is preferred, although marriage between levirate
cousins is considered incest.
E.Marriage between Crow cousins is preferred; marriage between Omaha cousins is
considered incest.
Why does this chapter on culture include a section that describes similarities and
differences between humans and apes, our closest relatives?
A.to emphasize culture’s evolutionary basis
B.to better define culture as a capacity that distinguishes members of the zoological
family hominidae from anatomically modern humans
C.to stress that there is no such thing as human nature
D.to promote the study of primatology, which has nothing to do with human culture
E.to illustrate how evolution is just a theory
________ is any society’s set of environmental practices and perceptionsthat is, its
cultural model of the environment and its relation to people and society.
A.Ethnoecology
B.Ecological imperialism
C.Indigenized
D.Ecological anthropology
E.Essentialism
What is the process by which children learn a particular cultural tradition?
A.acculturation
B.ethnology
C.enculturation
D.ethnography
E.biological adaptation
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?
A.promotion of the interests of multinational corporations at the expense of farmers and
workers
B.the efforts by international financial powers to create a global free market for goods
and services
C.the impact of the world on the rest of the universe
D.the spread and connectedness of production, communication, and technologies across
the world
E.opposition to global free trade
In the field, ethnographers strive to establish rapport: a good, friendly working
relationship based on personal contact
A.that is necessary in conducting any valuable research in the social sciences, not just
anthropology.
B.that, if done properly, ensures the ethnographer’s ability to conduct detached,
unbiased research.
C.achieved in large part by engaging in participant observation.
D.and if that fails, the next option is to pay people so they will talk about their culture.
E.as well as on payment, based on local standards, for people’s time spent with the
researcher.
Economic anthropologists have been concerned with two main questions, one focusing
on systems of human behavior and the other on the individuals who participate in those
systems. The first question is: How are production, distribution, and consumption
organized in different societies? The second question is:
A.Why has the myth of the profit-maximizing individual been so pervasive, despite
evidence to the contrary?
B.What are the best ways to convince individuals in funding agencies of the value of
ethnographic knowledge in the realm of economics?
C.What encourages overconsumption in Western economies?
D.What motivates people in different cultures to produce, distribute or exchange, and
consume?
E.What has been the impact of globalization at the level of individuals?
Anthropology has always been concerned with how environmental forces influence
humans, and how human activities affect the biosphere and the Earth itself. The 1950s
through the 1970s witnessed the emergence of an area of study known as cultural
ecology or ecological anthropology. This field
A.focused on how cultural beliefs and practices help human populations adapt to their
environment.
B.studied etic perspectives on human-environment relationships.
C.is no longer relevant, because it dealt with research models that were either regional
or local, but not global enough to account for the changes caused by climate change.
D.has limited present value, because it is not scientifically rigorous enough to address
environmental problems.
E.studied human-environment relations as cultural constructions and analyzed them as
“texts.”
Communism has two meanings, distinguished by how they are written. Small-c
communism describes a social system in which property is owned by the community
and in which people work for the common good. Large-C Communism
A.is just another version of neoliberalism but in disguise.
B.is an imperial doctrine to appropriate private capital for the sake of the survival of the
state.
C.is Lenin’s political theory of small-c communism.
D.refers to the social aspects of small-c communism.
E.was a political movement and doctrine seeking to overthrow capitalism and establish
a form of communism such as that which prevailed in the Soviet Union (the USSR)
from 1917 to 1991.
The Basque people, one of Europe’s most distinctive ethnic groups, have maintained a
strong ethnic identity and a language that is unrelated to any other known language.
Which of the following was a result of the forced assimilation campaign to ban
speaking and using Basque in print?
A.Ethnic pride in the Basque people is now diminished.
B.Basque parents, ashamed of their ethnicity, are refusing to teach their children their
language, opting for their full immersion in schools that teach in the national language.
C.Speaking Basque became taboo among the Basque people.
D.Strong nationalist sentiment and Basque terrorist groups were created in the Basque
region.
E.Basque is now an extinct language.
Anthropologist Edmund Leach (1955) observed that, depending on the society, several
different kinds of rights are allocated by marriage. According to Leach, marriage can
but doesn’t always accomplish each of the following EXCEPT
A.give either or both spouses a monopoly in the sexuality of the other.
B.give either or both spouses rights to the labor of the other.
C.give either or both spouses rights over the latent and manifest functions of the other.
D.give either or both spouses rights over the other’s property.
E.establish a socially significant “relationship of affinity” between spouses and their
relatives.
People in the United States sometimes have trouble understanding the power of culture
because of the value that American culture places on the idea of the individual. Yet in
American culture,
A.individualism is a distinctive commercial value, a feature of capitalist culture shared
only by the business elite.
B.the cult of individualism is truly shared only by the country’s atheist minority.
C.individualism is a distinctive shared value, a feature of culture.
D.individualism is a distinctive shared value, a result of genetic enculturation.
E.individualism is only something people talk about but don’t practice, because it is not
really part of their culture.
The incest taboo is almost culturally universal, but
A.not all cultures have one.
B.not all cultures define incest the same way.
C.not all cultures know about the consequences of incest.
D.some cultures have replaced it with the levirate.
E.some cultures practice gerontology anyway.
Anthropologist Susan Kent notes a tendency to stereotype foragers, to treat them as all
alike. They used to be stereotyped as isolated, primitive survivors of the Stone Age.
Another common, more recent, stereotype of foragers sees them as
A.peaceful individuals in touch with their inner selves.
B.culturally deprived people forced by states, colonialism, or world events into
marginalized environments.
C.ideal humans with the perfect diet and rhythm of life.
D.not isolated at all but living in nation-states and an interlinked world.
E.primitive survivors not of the Stone Age but of the Bronze Age.
Radcliffe-Brown advocated social anthropology as a synchronic rather than a
diachronic sciencethat is, a study
A.of culture in motion (synchronic) rather than as a static entity (diachronic).
B.that compares cultural traits within the same society and not across societies.
C.of societies across time (synchronic) rather than across space (diachronic).
D.of societies as they exist today (synchronic, one at a time) rather than across time
(diachronic).
E.of societies as made up of individuals, not as a sum greater than its parts.
Which of the following is NOT a problem with defining religion?
A.There are both sacred and secular rituals.
B.Distinctions between supernatural and natural are not consistently made in a society,
making it difficult to tell what is a religion and what isn’t.
C.Behaviors considered appropriate for religious occasions vary between cultures.
D.Only one religion can be considered true, so all others must be classified as myth.
E.Defining religion with reference to supernatural powers makes it difficult to classify
ritual-like behavior in secular contexts.
What is the term for policies and practices that harm a group and its members?
A.colonialism
B.racism
C.prejudice
D.ethnocentrism
E.discrimination
Which of the following statements about potlatching is NOT true?
A.Potlatching is an example of competitive feasting.
B.Potlatching was misinterpreted as a classical case of economically wasteful behavior.
C.Potlatching is a form of exchange that has long-term adaptive value.
D.Potlatching is a case that proves that the profit-maximizing motive is a human
universal.
E.Potlatching is well documented among Native American communities of the North
Pacific Coast of North America.
The domestic-public dichotomy refers to the separation of
A.spheres of exchange.
B.secular and sacred domains.
C.the elite and commoners.
D.home and the outside world.
E.cooking and sleeping spaces in residential units.
Which of the following is NOT one of the possible consequences experienced after the
“shock phase” of an encounter between indigenous societies and more powerful
outsiders?
A.increased mortality
B.a broad-spectrum revolution
C.fragmentation of kin groups
D.damaged social support systems
E.disrupted subsistence
What is the private-public dichotomy? In what kinds of societies does it occur, and in
what kinds of societies is it absent? What factors contribute to its presence or absence,
and what are its effects on gender roles?
Answer:Answers will vary
How is the world stratification system related to structural positions within the world
capitalist economy? What about the modern stratification system within the United
States?
Answer:Answers will vary
This chapter describes various ways in which dominant members of society exert
control over a population by resorting to indirect or even covert means. What are some
examples of this? What concepts have some come up with to understand the social
dynamics that arise from these situations? Can you think of some contemporary
examples of the use of these means of control?
Answer:Answers will vary
Imagine a foraging society that operates largely according to principles of generalized
reciprocity, just prior to being colonized. Now defend the following statement:
“Capitalism is not just an economic system; it is also a cultural system.”
Answer:Answers will vary
What is environmental anthropology? What can be its contribution to addressing
environmental threats around the world?
Answer:Answers will vary
What, if anything, is the difference between an anthropologist currently consulting on a
development project in Indonesia and another one conducting research in support of the
British colonial government’s efforts to subdue African natives in the 1930s?
Answer:Answers will vary
How might a premedical student apply some of the knowledge learned through
anthropology as a physician? What is the value of studying the curing and belief
systems of patients’ ethnic groups?
Answer:Answers will vary
How has technology influenced the way you communicate? Considering what you
already know about anthropological theory and methods, what kinds of questions might
an anthropologist pose about the role of technology in human culture, and particularly
language? How might he or she go about answering those questions?
Answer:Answers will vary
Populations in equatorial Africa and Papua New Guinea are quite similar
phenotypically, dark skinned with similar hair and facial features. How would the
existence of a typical racial model explain these similarities? How would evolutionary
biology’s explanation differ? Which model does a better job of explaining the data?
Answer:Answers will vary
What are ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, and how do they affect the work of
anthropologists? How do they influence your own life in an increasingly diverse
society?
Answer:Answers will vary
Define applied anthropology. What distinguishes the old from the new applied
anthropology? Can you think of any examples in current events that raise the question
of whether or not new applied anthropology has completely moved on from the dangers
of the old?
Answer:Answers will vary
This chapter considers differences and similarities between anthropology and other
academic fields such as sociology and psychology. What about history?
Answer:Answers will vary
Are certain sexual preferences more natural than others? What factors compel some
societies to deviate from the heterosexual norm found in most human societies?
Answer:Answers will vary
Describe the political aspect of ethnicity. Give examples. How is multiculturalism an
attempt to depoliticize ethnicity? (Start with a careful definition of what you mean by
political.)
Answer:Answers will vary
What is meant by the phrase “the social construction of race?” How does this concept
differ from race as perceived by the average middle-class American? (Use the
description given in the text.)
Answer:Answers will vary
How does the concept of race used by anthropologists today differ from the concept
used by early biologists?
Answer:Answers will vary
What factors might explain the correlation between women’s work outside the home
and a national index of happiness? What is it about women working outside of the
home that might make a country’s population happier? Brainstorm possible causes for
this correlation.
Answer:Answers will vary
What position do most anthropologists take on the matter of whether male dominance is
a cultural universal? What is your own view on the matter? What evidence can you put
forth to support your view?
Answer:Answers will vary
What is hypodescent? Why is it an arbitrary rule of racial classification?
Answer:Answers will vary
How have indigenous movements, political mobilization, and identity politics affected
ethnography?
Answer:Answers will vary