Developmental anthropology is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on
social issues in, and the cultural dimensions of, moral development.
Traditionally, ethnographers have tried to understand the whole of a particular culture.
The reason students of non-Western art have generally ignored individual artists in the
societies they have studied is that there aren”t any. In non-Western communities, there
is no concept of individual artists.
In Western societies, artistic and craft specialization is based on kin groups.
Brazilian racial classification is based exclusively on an individual’s phenotype.
Comparing notions of family between the United States and Brazil, the extended family
still plays a central role for most Brazilians.
During his work among the Tiv, Bohannan found that critics played a key role in the
creative process for the production of works of art.
The Qashqai and Basseri peoples are examples of nomadic foragers who live in
modern-day Iran.
Mass production has led to critical consumption as people are forced to make careful
decisions regarding what is needed and what is excess.
Domestic violence against women is prevalent in patrilineal-patrilocal systems in which
women are cut off from their supportive kin ties.
The biological degeneration explanation for the incest taboo has won over supporters
because of universal concerns about biology.
Beyond Morgan’s and Tylor’s early anthropological work, no major theoretical
paradigm in anthropology has embraced the role of evolution in cultural change.
The relative gender equality found in horticultural societies most likely characterizes
the most natural state of gender differentiation.
Most Americans are not very precise in distinguishing between the terms race and
ethnicity.
With patrilineal descent, someone takes his or her father’s last name but recognizes
descent through both parents.
The Handsome Lake revitalization movement urged its followers to reaffirm the
traditions of the Iroquois.
Humans can adapt to their surroundings through both biological and cultural means.
Although its roots extend further back in time, the real boom for applied anthropology
in the United States began in the 1970s.
Linguistic productivity refers to the fixed linguistic structures that prevent the creation
of new expressions.
The Industrial Revolution did not begin in France, because the French domestic
manufacturing system could produce satisfactorily without innovating.
The overall trend in anthropological theory has been from theories that put human
agency at the center of cultural dynamics to paradigms that see evolution as the main
force behind cultural change.
Modern means of transportation and communication have facilitated the process of
globalization.
In this chapter, an alternative to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that cultural
changes lead to changes in language.
To Kottak, the widespread U.S. belief that recreation and religion are separate domains
is both ethnocentric and false. Further, it may be taking the “fun” out of religion.
Survey research is usually conducted through intensive personal contact with the study
subjects.
Problems arise with contemporary means of communication, such as texting and online
messaging, because much of what we communicate is a nonverbal reflection of
emotional states.
A descent group consists only of a married couple and their children.
The American Anthropological Association Code of Ethics prohibits anthropologists
from working with governments on matters of national security.
Survey research studies a small sample of a larger population.
Given the realities of the contemporary world, anthropologists need to apply methods
that protect their analyses from biases caused by external forces.
The emic perspective focuses on local explanations of criteria and significance.
Manchester anthropologists Max Gluckman and Victor Turner made conflict an
important part of their analysis, distancing themselves somewhat from Panglossian
functionalism, the tendency to see things as functioning not just to maintain the system
but to do so in the most optimal way possible.
Boas and his students were strong proponents of cross-cultural comparisons, without
which they could not validate their findings.
In all languages, the same honorifics have the same meaning, regardless of context.
Cultures are integrated, patterned systems in which a change in one part often leads to
changes in other parts.
A major difference between rituals and plays is that the participants in rituals are
performing in earnest.
In a society with two exogamous lineages or moieties, who is the preferred cross-cousin
bride for a male ego?
A. MBD
B. MZD
C. FBD
D. FZS
E. FZB
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.
Robert Redfield’s research recognized that a city is a social context that is very different
from a tribal or peasant village. What did he study?
A. differences between more and less developed countries in their urban life
B. differences between health care systems among foragers and agriculturalists
C. differences between urban and rural communities
D. differences between the consequences of overinnovation and underdifferentiation
E. differences between illnesses and diseases
Foraging economies are usually associated with which type of sociopolitical
organization?
A. band
B. tribal
C. state
D. chiefdom
E. primate
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
A. some indigenous communities are able to isolate themselves from national and
international politics despite the continuous threat from outsiders.
B. indigenous communities do not understand the threat that their activities pose to
endangered species.
C. contemporary law is useless in solving disputes with indigenous communities.
D. contemporary indigenous groups have to grapple with multiple levels of culture,
contestation, and political regulation.
E. animals do not have rights.
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
What does it mean to say that humans use culture instrumentally?
A. People use culture to fulfill their basic biological needs for food, drink, shelter,
comfort, and reproduction.
B. People use culture to develop artistic endeavors, including musical instruments and
visual arts.
C. People use culture to advance civilization.
D. Culture is a human construct.
E. Culture is instrumental in the creation of societies.
Totemism, one form of cosmology, is
A. a system, in this case a religious one, for imagining and understanding the universe.
B. Claude Lvi-Strauss’s term to describe the binary oppositions prevalent in religious
myths all over the world.
C. a synonym for folklore.
D. the etic explanation of people’s view on human agency.
E. the emic concept of spirituality.
Race, like ethnicity in general, is
A. a cultural category rather than a biological reality.
B. a biological reality as much as a cultural one.
C. used by social scientists to classify humans based on their genes and shared blood.
D. poorly understood by geneticists and is therefore considered a cultural category.
E. a meaningless concept to people living day to day.
What term refers to a culture that shares a single language, religion, history, territory,
ancestry, and kinship?
A. monoculture
B. country
C. nation
D. society
E. homeland
Which of the following is a major difference between Brazilian and U.S. racial
taxonomies?
A. Brazilians do not recognize racial differences.
B. U.S. categories are purer than Brazilian categories.
C. There are no important differences between the two taxonomies.
D. In the United States, social race is determined at birth and does not change, but in
Brazil race is flexible, and more of an achieved status.
E. Brazilian racial categories are based on genotype, whereas U.S. categories are based
on phenotype.
What is microenculturation?
A. a condition that exists in large, industrialized states, wherein most of the population
has only a small amount of real culture
B. the process whereby particular roles are learned within a limited social system (for
example, a business)
C. the process whereby enculturation is accomplished through advanced media
technology
D. the result of the meeting between foraging and tribal communities in less developed
countries
E. enculturation based on a focused interest; for example, reruns of a TV show like
“Star Trek”
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
In which type of society would you expect women’s status to be highest?
A. pastoralists
B. agriculturalists
C. societies where there is much population pressure
D. hunters and gatherers
E. industrial states with high unemployment
Why do the Kalabari carve wooden sculptures of spirits?
A. purely for aesthetic reasons
B. as an artifact of colonialism; the carvings were a form of resistance to the colonial
intrusion and were used in voodoo rituals
C. to market and sell them on the world market
D. to manipulate spiritual forces, illustrating that not all sculpture is art
E. to serve as voodoo dolls
More recent approaches in historical anthropology, while sharing an interest in power
with world-system theorists, have focused more on
A. the structural causes of colonialism.
B. how anthropological theory can aid NGOs in writing an alternate history of
oppressed peoples.
C. the role of colonial bureaucracies in shaping international culture.
D. local agency, the transformative actions of individuals and groups within colonized
societies.
E. the state’s role in denying some of its citizens a place in history.
Which of the following statements about the globalization of risk is correct?
A. Rebroadcasting risk in the media magnifies risk perception.
B. Concern about risk is less developed in groups that are less endangered by those
risks.
C. Brazil has fewer unregulated ecological hazards than the U.S. does.
D. Across Brazil, Brazilians are universally aware of environmental risks.
E. Risks tend to be only local or regional, and not global concerns.
What is the process by which children learn a particular cultural tradition?
A. acculturation
B. ethnology
C. enculturation
D. ethnography
E. biological adaptation
Which of the following was a characteristic shared by recent foraging communities?
A. They fished a great deal.
B. They relied on welfare supplied by state-level societies.
C. They spoke simplified languages.
D. They lived in marginal environments that were of little interest to food-producing
societies.
E. They devolved to foraging from a more advanced level of subsistence.
Since the 1970s, many anthropologists have done research among the Ariaal, a nomadic
community of northern Kenya. Just as anthropologists have studied many aspects of
this community’s culture, the Ariaal have formed opinions based on observation of their
visitors. For example, they note how anthropologists
A. always follow up on their promises of sending reports of their studies.
B. slather white liquid on their very white skin to protect them from the sun, and often
favor short pants that show off their legs and boots.
C. focus only on the cultural aspects of their lives and ignore the biological aspects.
D. will work with them only if the Ariaal exhibit no signs of the modernization that
threatens to spoil their culture.
E. typically are very ethnocentric, a key aspect of the anthropological approach to
studying other cultures.
What does it mean that kinship, like race, is culturally constructed?
A. The educational system is failing to educate people about real, biologically based
human relatedness.
B. Like race, kinship is a social fiction, with no real social consequence.
C. It is a phenomenon separated from other real aspects of society, such as economics
and politics.
D. Studies of kinship tell us little about people’s actual experiences, only about what
they think those experiences are like.
E. Some genealogical kin are considered to be relatives whereas others are not, and the
rules underlying such considerations vary across cultures.
What terms are used to convey or imply a status difference between the speaker and the
person being referred to or addressed?
A. formal addresses, but sociolinguists rarely pay attention to them, because their use in
a social situation is always a result of linguistic exploitation
B. honorifics
C. style shifts
D. diglossia
E. linguistic relativity
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.
Today’s ecological anthropology, also known as environmental anthropology, attempts
not only to understand but also to
A. find solutions to environmental problems, acknowledging that ecosystems
management involves multiple levels.
B. prescribe top-down solutions to ecological problems.
C. work closely with state agencies, among whom they do most of their ethnography, to
promote institutional change.
D. contribute to development projects that sometimes, out of necessity, replace
indigenous institutions with culturally alien concepts.
E. promote the concepts of environmental rights, even at the expense of cultural rights.
In science, what is the relationship among explanations, associations, and theories?
A. An explanation must show how and why the thing to be understood is associated
with or related to something else. Theories require covariation: when one thing (a
variable) changes, the other one varies as well. Associations provide explanations for
both explanations and theories.
B. They mean the same thing.
C. An explanation must show how and why the thing to be understood is associated
with or related to something else. Associations require covariation: when one thing (a
variable) changes, the other one varies as well. Theories provide explanations for
associations.
D. Explanations and associations are explained by theories, which are observed
relationships between two or more variables.
E. An explanation must show how and why the thing to be understood is associated
with or related to something else. Thus, explanations and associations are the same
thing. A theory is a suggested but as yet unverified explanation.
Which of the following is NOT an example of participant observation?
A. administering interviews according to an interview schedule over the phone
B. helping out at harvest time
C. dancing at a ceremony
D. buying a shroud for a village ancestor
E. engaging in informal chit-chat
This chapter’s description of how humans cope with low oxygen pressure in high
altitudes illustrates
A. human capacities for cultural and biological adaptation, the latter involving both
genetic and physiological adaptations.
B. how biological adaptations are effective only when they are genetic.
C. how human plasticity has decreased ever since we embraced a sedentary lifestyle
some 10,000 years ago.
D. how in matters of life or death, biology is ultimately more important than culture.
E. the need for anthropologists to pay more attention to human adaptation in extreme
environments.
What is the study of the sounds used in speech?
A. phones
B. phonemes
C. phonology
D. phonetics
E. phonemics
The research technique that uses diagrams and symbols to record kin connections is
called
A. kin-based interviewing.
B. genealogical participant observation.
C. interpretive anthropology.
D. DNA testing.
E. the genealogical method.
As illustrated by a comparison between the Basseri and Qashqai, two Iranian nomadic
tribes, illustrates how as regulatory problems increase,
A. pastoralists are less likely to interact with other populations in the same space and
time.
B. rules regarding crime and punishment become more severe.
C. political hierarchies become more complex.
D. age sets begin to disintegrate.
E. silence becomes the best strategy to avoid conflict.