Early anthropologists explained incest taboos as a reflection of “instinctive horror” of
mating with close relatives. However, this explanation for incest taboos has been
rejected because formal incest restrictions would be unnecessary if humans really do
have an instinctive aversion to incest.
Exogamy is the practice of seeking out a mate within one’s own social group.
Ethnosemantics studies how different members of different linguistic groups organize,
categorize, and classify their experiences and perceptions.
Development projects usually fail when they try to replace indigenous institutions with
culturally alien concepts.
Although there are many different levels of culture, an individual can participate in only
one level at a time.
Religion can be used as a powerful means of controlling society.
Worldwide, concern about environmental and technological risks is more developed in
groups that are less endangered by those risks.
In nonindustrial societies, economic activities are embedded in the society.
Antimodernism is a rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier,
purer, better way of life.
Recent genetic research suggests that a speech-friendly mutation took hold in humans
around 150,000 years ago, thus conferring selective advantages (linguistic and cultural
abilities) that allowed those who had it to spread it, at the expense of those who did not.
Postsocialist Russia’s economy was growing again by 2010, as were its birth rate and
average life expectancy.
Genocide refers to the physical destruction of an ethnic or religious group through mass
murder.
The Kalahari Desert of southern Africa is home to the foraging group known as the
Ju/’hoansi San.
According to Wallerstein, the nations in the world system can be classified into three
types: core, periphery, and frontier.
Catharsis is an intense emotional release.
Culture is transmitted by both formal and informal instruction, but not by observation.
Interracial, biracial, and multiracial identities are becoming more and more common in
the United States.
In almost all cases of marriage in nonindustrial societies, some kind of preexisting
social relationship between any two individuals helps determine whether they may
marry.
Racial categories in Brazil are not rigid; rather, they often change depending on the
social setting.
Anthropologist W. Arens (1981) argued that the reason football is such a peculiarly U.S.
pastime is that Americans enjoy particularly violent sports.
In order to intensify production, agriculturalists frequently build irrigation canals and
terraces.
The anthropological approach to the study of political systems and organization is
global and comparative and includes nonstates as well as the states and nation-states
usually studied by political scientists.
The media offer a rich web of external connectionsthrough cable, satellite, the Internet,
television, movies, radio, telephones, print, and other sourcesthat can provide contact,
information, entertainment, and potential social validation.
Postmodernism refers to the breakdown of traditional categories, standards, and
boundaries in favor of a more fluid, context-dependent set of identities.
The study of television’s impact on people’s behavior, attitudes, and values is the
domain of sociologists, not anthropologists.
Cross-culturally, divorce is known only in industrialized societies where a high
percentage of women are gainfully employed.
Higher amounts of melanin in the skin inhibit the body’s ability to manufacture vitamin
D. This confers an adaptive advantage in environments with excessive sun exposure.
Brazilians’ inherent sociability helps account for the explosive growth of online social
network use in their country.
Because appreciation of the arts is acquired through enculturation, what one finds
aesthetically pleasing depends in part on one’s cultural background.
States are complex systems of sociopolitical organization that aim to control and
administer everything from conflict resolution to fiscal systems to population
movements.
Domesticated animals, more specifically their manure and pulling capabilities, are key
components of horticulture.
Really good key cultural consultants will actually end up recording most of the data
needed to write an ethnography.
As investigators who illustrated the functionalist approach in anthropology, both
Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown performed ethnographic research focused on
A.myth and ritual and the ways these aspects of culture created social cohesion.
B.the evolutionary history of present-day cultural patterns.
C.the role of cultural traits and practices in contemporary society.
D.the symbolic value that cultural traits and practices held with members of
contemporary society.
E.the role of cultural traits and practices aimed at conflict resolution.
Which of the following is NOT discussed in this chapter as a way of defining art?
A.Art is something that attracts your attention, catches your eye, and directs your
thoughts.
B.Art is the quality, production, expression, or realm of what is beautiful or of more
than ordinary significance.
C.Art is the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria.
D.Art is the creative expression of culture through the visual arts, literature, music,
theater arts, and other methods.
E.Art is in a cultural sphere separate from politics and religion.
Which of the following statements about Karl Marx is NOT true?
A.He analyzed 19th-century industrial production capitalism.
B.He viewed socioeconomic stratification in terms of several classes with different but
complementary interests.
C.He called the owners of the means of production the bourgeoisie.
D.He called the people who sold their own labor the proletariat.
E.He emphasized class consciousness.
Which is the single greatest obstacle to slowing climate change?
A.the growing population of the poorer nations in the world
B.proper climatic changes
C.having scientists decide on a definition of climate change
D.meeting energy needs, particularly in energy-hungry countries such as the United
States, China, and India
E.a lack of data portraying the effects of climate change
Identities are
A.fixed by both genotype and phenotype.
B.never dependent on context.
C.not fixed; they are fluid and multiple.
D.fictions.
E.creative constructs and therefore of little real consequence.
Shamans and other magico-religious specialists are effective curers with regard to what
kind of disease theory?
A.exotic
B.ritualistic
C.naturalistic
D.personalistic
E.scientific
What component of cultural anthropology is comparative and focused on building upon
our understanding of how cultural systems work?
A.ethnography
B.data collection
C.ethnology
D.fieldwork
E.data entry
What term refers to the arrangement and order of words into sentences?
A.syntax
B.lexicon
C.grammar
D.phonology
E.morphology
Which of the following is a characteristic of most foraging societies?
A.social stratification
B.sedentism
C.egalitarianism
D.irrigation
E.large populations
Economic relationships are characteristically embedded in other relationships, such as
kinship, in all of the following kinds of societies EXCEPT
A.states.
B.foragers.
C.horticulturalists.
D.pastoralists.
E.chiefdoms.
How do chiefdoms differ from states?
A.Chiefdoms are based on differential access.
B.Chiefdoms lack socioeconomic stratification and stratum endogamy.
C.Chiefdoms lack ascribed statuses.
D.Chiefdoms have permanent political regulation.
E.Chiefdoms have full-time religious specialists.
In survey research, what term is used to refer to the attributes that vary among the
members of a population?
A.unknowns
B.questionnaires
C.interviews
D.variables
E.random samples
Which of the following statements about British colonialism is NOT true?
A.It lacked an intervention philosophy.
B.It can be divided into two stages.
C.It was legitimized by the racist notion of the “white man’s burden.”
D.It began to disintegrate after World War II.
E.It was partly driven by business interests.
What is the postwar baby boom of the late 1940s and 1950s responsible for?
A.It fueled the general expansion of the U.S. educational system, including academic
anthropology.
B.It promoted renewed interest in applied anthropology during the 1950s and 1960s.
C.It brought anthropology into most high school curricula.
D.It produced a new interest in ethnic diversity.
E.It worked to shrink the world system.
Which of the following economic principles is generally dominant in industrial society?
A.generalized exchange
B.the market principle
C.redistribution
D.negative reciprocity
E.balanced reciprocity
A big man’s position depends on all of the following EXCEPT
A.hard work.
B.inherited inequality.
C.generosity.
D.personal charisma.
E.creation of wealth superior to that of others.
Development anthropology is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social
issues in, and the cultural dimension of, what type of development?
A.ethical
B.theoretical
C.political
D.economic
E.scholastic
Which of the following is a cultural generality?
A.exogamy
B.the use of fire
C.the incest taboo
D.the use of symbols
E.the nuclear family
The rise in female employment in the United States, especially in professional careers,
when coupled with ________, has dramatically increased household incomes in the
upper classes. This pattern has been one factor sharpening the contrast in household
income between the richest and poorest populations of Americans.
A.homogamy
B.serial monogamy
C.endogamy
D.sororal polygyny
E.exogamy
Which of the following statements about culture is NOT true?
A.It has an evolutionary basis.
B.It is acquired by all humans, as members of society, through enculturation.
C.It encompasses rule-governed, shared, symbol-based, learned behavior, as well as
beliefs transmitted across the generations.
D.Everyone is cultured.
E.It is transmitted genetically.
The relatively recent creation of virtual worlds has attracted contemporary
ethnographers to venture into online communities. Of the various techniques used to
study these virtual worlds, which has been most important?
A.participant observation
B.interviews
C.genealogical method
D.key consultants
E.life histories
In which type of society would you expect women’s status to be highest?
A.pastoralists
B.agriculturalists
C.societies where there is a great deal of population pressure
D.hunters and gatherers
E.industrial states with high unemployment
Based on research in the 1960s, which of the following statements about Etoro
conceptions of heterosexual intercourse is NOT true?
A.It was thought to sap a man’s vitality.
B.Women who wanted too much heterosexual intercourse were viewed as witches.
C.Such sex was permitted only a hundred days a year.
D.It was permitted to take place only in the couple’s residence.
E.It was seen as a necessary sacrifice that would eventually lead to a man’s death.
What term refers to the kind of descent in which people choose the descent group that
they join?
A.neolineal
B.patrilineal
C.ambilineal
D.matrilineal
E.bilineal
What term refers to the culturally sanctioned practice of marrying someone within a
group to which one belongs?
A.incest
B.exogamy
C.hypogamy
D.endogamy
E.endosperm
Which of the following statements about nonstate societies is true?
A.Warfare is conducted by professional armies.
B.Political institutions are maintained totally separate from economic institutions.
C.Social control is maintained mostly through physical coercion.
D.Economic, political, and religious activities are often embedded in one another.
E.All political power is based on religion.
Which of the following perspectives emphasizes how cultural forces constantly mold
human biology?
A.cultural genetics perspective
B.biocultural perspective
C.psychological anthropological perspective
D.holistic perspective
E.scientific-humanistic perspective
________ refers to the rapid spread or advance of one culture at the expense of others,
or its imposition on other cultures.
A.Diasporation
B.Symbolic domination
C.Cultural imperialism
D.Conquest
E.Colonialism
Contrast gender roles in two of the following: A) foraging societies; B)
matrilineal-matrilocal societies; C) patrilineal-patrilocal societies; D) pastoralists; and
E) agriculturalists.
Answer:Answers will vary
Regarding sexual orientation, all of the following are true EXCEPT that
A.different types of sexual desires and experiences hold different meanings for
individuals and groups.
B.there is conclusive scientific evidence that sexual orientation is genetically
determined.
C.in a society, individuals will differ in the nature, range, and intensity of sexual
interests and urges.
D.culture always plays a role in molding individual sexual urges toward a collective
norm, and these norms vary from culture to culture.
E.flexibility in sexual expression seems to be an aspect of our primate heritage, since
both masturbation and same-sex sexual activity exist among chimpanzees and other
primates.
People have to eat, but culture teaches us what, when, and how to do so. This is an
example of how
A.culture takes the natural biological urges we share with other animals and teaches us
how to express them in particular ways.
B.biology dominates culture.
C.we are all just uncultured animals.
D.individuals are powerless to alter the strong relationship between nature and culture.
E.”human nature” is a cultural construction, an idea we have in our minds that has
nothing to do with true nature.
What are some of the differences between endogamy and exogamy, and how absolute is
the distinction implied by these terms? Use examples to illustrate your argument.
Answer:Answers will vary
There are rights, duties, and obligations associated with kinship and descent. Many
societies have both families and descent groups. Give an illustration of how obligations
to one may conflict with obligations to the other. How does your example relate to your
experience managing rights, duties, and obligations in your own family?
Answer:Answers will vary
How do the media affect Americans and Brazilians differently? How do the media play
a role in the discrepancy between the amount of Olympic medals won by the United
States and Brazil?
Answer:Answers will vary
What are honorifics? Why are sociolinguists interested in their use in context? In your
everyday life, do you ever use honorifics? What does their use, or lack of use, imply
about your relationships to others?
Answer:Answers will vary
Compare and contrast the evolution of language and biological evolution. What role
may mutations play in the origins of human language, if any?
Answer:Answers will vary
Compare and contrast the various mechanisms of cultural change discussed in this
chapter. In particular, to what extent does each model for change suggest that culture
shapes human behavior or is shaped by human behavior?
Answer:Answers will vary
How does one distinguish between a chiefdom and a state? Is this a useful distinction?
Is it always easy to make such a distinction?
Answer:Answers will vary
This chapter begins with a bold claim: Anthropologists study human beings wherever
and whenever they find them. Yet there are limits to when and where anthropologists
can carry out their work. Can you think of any? How might your consideration of these
limits affect how you would design an anthropological study?
Answer:Answers will vary
“Anthropologists spend much of their time studying trivia like kinship.” Do you agree
with this statement? If so, why? If not, why not?
Answer:Answers will vary