1. The central concept in anthropology is the concept of:
a. distribution.
b. power.
c. culture.
d. artifacts.
e. evolution.
2. The anthropological concept of culture includes all of the following EXCEPT:
a. the ideas people learn.
b. genetic aspects of being human.
c. the material things people share.
d. the ways people behave.
e. the values and attitudes that people have.
3. Which of the following statements about the concept of culture is FALSE?
a. Culture is symbolic.
b. Culture is learned.
c. Culture is always changing.
d. Culture is genetically-based.
e. Culture is adaptive.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
4. People from the same culture can predict one another’s behavior because:
a. culture determines behavior.
b. culture conditions behavior.
c. all people in any given society accept exactly the same rules for behavior.
d. all people in any given society have exactly the same ideas.
e. culture groups are programmed to imitate each other.
5. How does the earliest anthropological definition of culture by Edward Tylor differ from the definitions frequently
used today?
a. Tylor’sdefinitionismorelikea“laundrylist”ofattributesthattogetherformaculture.
b. Definitions today tend to be more specialized and detailed about characteristics of culture.
c. Definitions of culture are no longer being formulated. Anthropology has a single significant definition of culture
that all researchers use.
d. Culture was more evident in the time of Tylor and his definition includes details that are no longer relevant to
the study of culture.
e. Tylor’sdefinitionistheonlydefinitionstillinusetoday.
6. All of the following are components of any definition of culture EXCEPT:
a. ideas and values.
b. biological predispositions.
c. material objects.
d. behavior patterns.
e. attitudes in society.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
7. Symbols are one of the most critical components of culture. Which of the following statements is NOT true of
symbols?
a. Symbols unify people into a group.
b. Symbols provide meaning.
c. Symbols are completely separate from language.
d. Symbols help people identify objects and ideas.
e. Symbols are powerful.
8. Which statement about the term civilization is true?
a. Civilization is synonymous with culture.
b. All cultures are civilizations, but all civilizations are not cultures.
c. Civilizations are characterized by monumental architecture, writing, and centralized government.
d. Civilizations first appeared around 10,000 years ago.
e. There are no contemporary civilizations. This was a phenomenon of the historical past.
9. Trying to operate in an unfamiliar culture:
a. often leads to the experience of culture shock.
b. is never difficult for an educated person.
c. is relatively easy if you have read a book about that culture.
d. may lead to physical distress but not psychological distress.
e. creates mild psychological stress.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
10. Subcultures have all of the following characteristics EXCEPT:
a. they are subsets of the wider culture.
b. they always enjoy all the benefits of the mainstream culture.
c. they retain a level of cultural uniqueness that sets them apart.
d. they are neither inferior nor superior to mainstream culture.
e. theydonotcontrolsociety’smajorinstitutionalstructures.
11. Which of the following best illustrates a pluralistic society?
a. It is composed of a number of subcultural groups and has a low potential for misunderstandings or hostilities.
b. It has a great potential for misunderstandings or hostilities and is found in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
c. It is found in the United States and the United Kingdom but because of diffusion it is rapidly disappearing.
d. It is a peaceable society that promotes a great deal of cultural and social solidarity.
e. It is a type of society that first developed with immigration, but is no longer in existence.
12. The process by which people acquire their own culture is:
a. called enculturation.
b. genetically based.
c. more rapid in industrialized societies than in less technologically developed ones.
d. slowest in industrialized societies and most rapid in less technologically developed ones.
e. called pluralism and results in pluralistic societies.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
13. Which of the following is the best example of the enculturation process?
a. An adolescent on an exchange program to another country
b. An adult business traveler spending short periods of time in many different countries
c. A young child attending a bilingual school in the U.S.
d. A young adult interacting within a multicultural community group
e. An infant learning how to walk and speak
14. Which statement about the learned nature of culture is true?
a. Humans are born with many predetermined behaviors.
b. People learn what they need to know in order to adapt to their environment.
c. Some cultures are more intelligent than others.
d. Children can learn only one culture at a time.
e. People around the world acquire culture through very different processes.
15. Cross cultural coaching is appropriate in which of the following settings?
a. Factory
b. Public high school
c. The United States Army
d. Work in federal agencies
e. Cross-cultural coaching is appropriate in all settings.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
16. When we describe a culture as being polychronic, we mean that people:
a. feel comfortable engaging in a number of activities simultaneously.
b. tend to be extremely punctual.
c. prefer to engage in only one activity at a time.
d. believeinthesaying“timeismoney.”
e. are extremely ethnocentric.
17. Dr.EdwardT.Hall’smodelofmonochronicvs.polychronicculturesisbasedontheculturalvariableof:
a. color.
b. spirituality.
c. time.
d. money.
e. power.
18. Which of the following statements about the concept of culture is FALSE?
a. Culture influences biological processes.
b. Culture is learned.
c. Cultures change over time.
d. All cultures include some common features.
e. Most cultural universals are instinctual.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
19. A Hindu who vomits after inadvertently eating beef best illustrates which of the following cultural principles?
a. Culture is learned.
b. Cultures are always changing.
c. Culture influences biological processes.
d. The parts of a culture are interrelated.
e. Culture is adaptive.
20. Some people in the world have tattoos, use scarification or wear bones in their noses because:
a. theydon’tunderstandtheharmtheydototheirbodies.
b. they have a distorted concept of beauty.
c. they do it as part of their religious practice.
d. their culture tells them that it looks good.
e. it is used as a status symbol to attract sexual partners.
21. Ferraro’s wife was considered unattractive by the Kikuyu because:
a. the color of her skin was too light.
b. she was too thin.
c. she had pierced ears.
d. she wore lipstick.
e. she was too short.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
22. “Wearingagreenhat”inTaiwanmeansthat:
a. aman’swifeorgirlfriendhasbeenunfaithful.
b. a young man is eligible to be married.
c. a young woman is eligible to be married.
d. aman’swifehasdied.
e. the person (male or female) is celebrating a birthday.
23. Despite many differences in details, all cultures share a number of common cultural features including:
a. marriage systems.
b. a system of distribution.
c. a system of communication.
d. a system of education.
e. each of the systems listed here.
24. Which of the following is NOT a universal cultural need?
a. A social control system
b. A system of marriage and family
c. A system of supernatural belief
d. A formal educational system
e. A system of communication
25. Saying that every society has an economic system means that:
a. every society has a system of standardized currency.
b. every society has markets.
c. each receives goods and services based on his or her capacity to pay.
d. every society has worked out a patterned way of ensuring that people get what they need for survival.
e. every society is now part of the globalized economy.
26. Which of the following statements is FALSE?
a. Culture provides humans with a quicker and more efficient means of adaptation than Darwinian natural
selection alone.
b. Darwinian natural selection is the primary means by which non-human animals and plants adapt to the world.
c. Darwinian natural selection is the way that animals adapt to their world, but humans adapt only by means of
culture.
d. Not all aspects of culture are adaptive for humans.
e. Culture is the primary means by which humans adapt to their world.
27. The“organicanalogy”referstotheideathat:
a. the parts of a culture are interconnected much like the organs of a living animal.
b. only the fittest members of a species will survive.
c. humans evolved directly from non-human primates.
d. culture helps people adapt to their environments.
e. culture is a living and breathing entity that affects human survival.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
28. The integration of a culture means that:
a. all of the cultural parts are tightly connected to all other cultural parts.
b. cultural parts are somewhat interconnected with one another.
c. members of two different subcultures attend school together and thereby learn to adapt to culture.
d. a culture is exactly like the body of a living organism.
e. it is impossible to distinguish any area of culture from another area.
29. The task of the cultural anthropologist is to:
a. describe the various parts of the culture he or she studies.
b. study aspects of a culture in isolation from the rest of the cultural system.
c. show how parts of a culture are independent from one another.
d. determine if one culture is more moral than another.
e. work to help develop the most adaptive type of culture to improve human potential.
30. In comparison to the United States and Germany, why have so few scientists received Nobel Prizes in Japan?
a. Japan does not have as strong a scientific tradition as the Western nations.
b. Japanese scientists have focused more on productive efficiency rather than any kind of technological
advances.
c. Most Japanese scientists who are advanced choose to immigrate to Europe or the United States.
d. Japanese scientists have been chosen to receive the Nobel Prize, but because of cultural tradition they have
not traveled to accept the award.
e. Japanese culture does not value bold experimentation of individual accomplishment as much as these other
countries.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
31. The organic analogy of a culture is an example of which of the following characteristics?
a. Cultures are constantly changing.
b. Cultures are adaptive and maladaptive.
c. Cultures are generally interconnected.
d. Culture influences biological processes.
e. There are cultural universals.
32. Which of the following statements is FALSE?
a. All cultures are adaptive.
b. Culture gives humans an adaptive advantage over other animals.
c. What is adaptive in one culture may be maladaptive in another.
d. Sometimes cultural behaviors are adaptively neutral.
e. Cultural adaptation is quicker than biological adaptation.
33. Which of the following terms is no longer used to describe smaller societies?
a. Primitive society
b. Egalitarian society
c. Technologically simple society
d. Preliterate society
e. Small-scale society
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture
34. Internal cultural changes occur most often in:
a. cities.
b. monumental architecture.
c. Asian societies.
d. indigenous societies.
e. highly industrialized societies.
35. What types of cultures remain completely static year after year?
a. Small-scale cultures
b. Non-Western cultures
c. No culture remains completely static.
d. Western cultures
e. All cultures are static.
36. The spread of a cultural element from one society to another is called:
a. innovation.
b. tabula rasa.
c. ethnocentrism.
d. cultural diffusion.
e. invention.
37. Cultural diffusion is very important in cultural change because:
a. people are essentially uninventive and unimaginative.
b. all important elements of culture came from European societies.
c. all important elements of culture came from Asian and African societies.
d. it is easier to borrow a thing or idea than it is to invent it.
e. it allows cultures to adapt more quickly to their changing environment.
38. Which of the following is NOT an example of cultural diffusion?
a. The popularity of Tokyo Disneyland in Japan
b. The popularity of manga, karaoke, and sushi in the United States
c. The use of the detachable outrigger on the island of Hiva Oa
d. A feng shuiMcDonald’sconstructedinaCaliforniacitywithalargeAsianpopulation
e. African women exercising and losing weight to fit the American ideal of beauty
39. Which statement about culture change is FALSE?
a. Cultures are always changing.
b. Cultures change through the processes of diffusion and innovation.
c. Cultures change more through invention than through diffusion.
d. Anthropologists do not agree on the single most important cause of culture change.
e. Culture change is important to cultural survival.
Chapter2—TheConceptofCulture