Radiative forcings work to warm and cool the earth. If these didn”t exist, there would
be no global warming.
mile Durkheim, an early scholar of religion, stressed what he termed religious
effervescence. Anthropologists too have stressed the collective, social, shared, and
enacted nature of religion, the emotions it generates, and the meanings it embodies.
Based on people’s claimed religions, Christianity is the world’s largest, with some 2.1
billion adherents.
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.
Non-Western medicine does not maintain a sharp distinction between biological and
psychological illnesses.
In states, all artwork can be clearly attributed to a specific artist.
Linguistic stratification can occur between dialects when one is considered a prestige
dialect, as is the case with High German and Low German, or with Standard English
(SE) and Black English Vernacular (BEV).
Creole languages are commonly found in regions where different linguistic groups
come into contact with one another.
Although there are many different levels of culture, an individual can participate in only
one level at a time.
Historical linguists use linguistic similarities and differences in the world today to study
long-term changes in language.
The children of your father’s sister are called your cross-cousins.
In the Igbo women’s war, women used song, dance, noise, and “in-your-face” behavior
to attempt to subvert formal authority, but women did not gain any greater influence.
A bifurcate merging kinship terminology distinguishes between collateral and lineal
relatives.
Polyandry is common and practiced under a wide range of conditions.
U.S. popular culture has moved from a preoccupation with class differences to a
tendency to deny or ignore their existence. The narratives we see on screen and in print
today often present homogenized upper-middle-class lifestyles in which social diversity
is minimized and the economic underpinnings of class are ignored.
The efficacy of social control depends on how clearly people envision the sanctions that
an antisocial act might trigger.
Life in nations in the periphery is characterized by high percentages of poverty and
frequent food shortages brought on by a high level of stratification between a small
number of large landowners and landless workers.
The key difference between a village head and a big man is that the big man has
supporters in many villages, whereas the supporters of the village head are restricted to
his respective village.
A nation-state refers to an ethnic group that is not politically autonomous.
Although science relies on the use of unbiased methods, complete objectivity is
impossible. There is always an observer bias.
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.
Witch hunts are an example of how religion can be used to limit deviant social behavior
by instilling strong motivations to behave properly.
Racial categories in Brazil are not rigid; rather, they often change depending on the
social setting.
Focal vocabularies are found only in non-Western societies like the Eskimo and the
Nuer.
Women in matrilineal societies tend to occupy elevated status positions.
When an ethnographer uses an interview schedule to gather information from the field,
this inevitably limits the researcher’s capacity to ask and answer truly relevant
questions.
Interracial, biracial, and multiracial identities are becoming more and more common in
the United States.
A functional explanation attempts to correlate particular customs (in this case kinship
terms) to other features of society.
Exogamy is the practice of seeking out a mate within one’s own social group.
Many of the political, linguistic, religious, and economic distinctions among the
countries of West Africa today are artifacts of colonialism.
The oldest known musical instrument, the “Divje babe flute,” dates back to more than
43,000 years ago.
The sociopolitical organization of foragers tends to be bands.
In nonindustrial societies, economic activities are embedded in the society.
An illness is a scientifically identified health threat caused by a bacterium, virus,
fungus, parasite, or other pathogen.
According to this chapter’s “Focus on Globalization,” American baseball appears to be
more ethnically diverse than American football or basketball.
When an ethnic identity is flexible and situational, it can become an achieved status.
Anthropology is characterized by a methodological rather than moral relativism; in
order to understand another culture fully, anthropologists try to understand its members’
beliefs and motivations.
While cultural abilities have a biological basis, they do not have an evolutionary basis.
Kinesics is the study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures,
and facial expressions.
Which of the following does NOT influence artistic expression?
A. patronage and sponsorship
B. advice and criticism from judges and experts
C. etic categories of utilitarian and nonutilitarian elements of society
D. public opinion
E. the desire of artists to express themselves
All of the following are true about neoliberalism EXCEPT that it
A. places more emphasis on individual responsibility than on the common good.
B. characterizes the type of policies designed by powerful international financial
institutions.
C. has been spreading globally.
D. refers to a recent revival of economic liberalism.
E. is characterized by the policy that environmental protection and job safety are too
important to be left unregulated.
Which of the following is a reason why dark skin color is adaptive?
A. dietary adaptation
B. admission of UV rays
C. reducing the frequency of rickets
D. preventing the destruction of folate
E. malarial resistance
Reflecting today’s world, in which people, images, and information move about as
never before, fieldwork must be more flexible and on a larger scale. The result of such
fieldwork is often an ethnography that
A. challenges anthropologists concerned with salvaging isolated and untouched cultures
around the world.
B. becomes less useful and valuable to understanding culture.
C. is increasingly multi-sited and multi-timed, integrating analyses of external
organizations and forces to understand local phenomena.
D. is more traditional, given anthropologists’ concerns of defending the field’s roots.
E. requires that researchers stay in the same site for more than three years.
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
An anthropological understanding of ethnicity and race requires exploring how people
and institutions define, negotiate, and even challenge their identities in society. One
way anthropologistsand social scientists in generaldo this is by studying status, which
refers to
A. a mutually exclusive social identity that is set by others and has little to do with the
actions of an individual.
B. any position, no matter what its prestige, that someone occupies in society.
C. one’s biologically determined identity within a hierarchical society.
D. one’s socially negotiated identity, which always changes throughout a person’s
lifetime.
E. an identity determined by the state through census practices.
mile Durkheim, an early scholar of religion, stressed what he termed religious
effervescence. Anthropologists too have stressed
A. that proper analysis requires separation of collective re-creation from collective
religion.
B. the collective, shared, and enacted nature of religion, the emotions it generates, and
the meanings it embodies.
C. the analysis of the use of behavior-altering drugs in religious experience.
D. the collective as well as individual universality of religion.
E. the qualities that make religion present in some societies but not others.
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.
What are the means, or factors, of production?
A. synonyms of a society’s mode of production
B. a society’s institutional mechanisms for making sure that everyone is productive
C. the ways a society organizes production
D. labor forces organized by kinship ties
E. a society’s major productive resources, such as land and other natural resources,
labor, technology, and capital
All of the following are proper roles for applied anthropologists EXCEPT
A. identifying needs for change that local people perceive.
B. working with people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitive change.
C. placing the cultural values of the local people above everybody else’s cultural values.
D. protecting local people from harmful policies and projects that might threaten them.
E. working as participant observers, taking part in the events they study in order to
understand local thought and behavior.
Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with some 2.1 billion adherents, followed by
Islam, which has approximately 1.3 billion practitioners. Islam is the fastest-growing
religion. This chapter’s “Appreciating Diversity” segment examines how Islam has
spread by adapting successfully to many national and cultural differences, including the
presence of other religions that were already established in the areas to which Islam has
spread. An important result of this process is that
A. Islam is far from homogeneousthe faith reflects the increasingly diverse areas in
which it is practiced.
B. unlike Christianity, Islam has the capacity to transform local culture profoundly.
C. Islam is growing at the expense of other beliefs and practices.
D. the separation of religion and state is disappearing in most places in the world.
E. the West is losing the culture war.
What is the term for ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous
political status?
A. ethnicities
B. captive nations
C. nations
D. nationalities
E. ethnic avengers
Throughout the many years that Kottak has been doing research among the
nonindustrial Betsileo of Madagascar, he has witnessed the impact of globalization on
their livelihood. All of the following have threatened the traditional fabric of Betsileo
life EXCEPT
A. agricultural intensification caused by population pressure.
B. the breakdown of social and political order, fueled by an increasing demand for cash.
C. the growing threat of cattle thieves, some of them relatively well-educated young
men looking to make some cash.
D. the increased presence of anthropologists collaborating with local leaders to preserve
their ancestral lands.
E. emigration.
Linguistic anthropologists also are interested in investigating the structure of language
and how it varies across time and space. What is the study of the forms in which sounds
combine to form words?
A. phonology
B. syntax
C. morphology
D. lexicon
E. grammar
Anthropology may aid in the progress of education by helping educators avoid all of the
following EXCEPT
A. indiscriminate assignment of nonnative English speakers to the same classrooms as
children with “behavior problems.”
B. tolerance of ethnic diversity.
C. incorrect application of labels such as “learning impaired.”
D. sociolinguistic discrimination.
E. ethnic stereotyping.
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.
What kind of religion is most frequently found in foraging bands?
A. communal
B. shamanic
C. cargo cult
D. monotheistic
E. polytheistic
Which of the following statements about individual artists in non-Western societies is
true?
A. They tend to be iconoclastic and antisocial.
B. They are more likely to be part of the cultural mainstream than Western artists,
because social approval and acceptance is more important in non-Western societies.
C. They are all trained in formal, state-controlled schools for the arts.
D. They are nonexistent.
E. They are just copying Western art forms.
What is the commonly stated goal for most development projects?
A. greater socioeconomic stratification
B. ethnocide
C. cultural assimilation
D. decreased local autonomy
E. increased equity
Anthropologists are interested in kinship calculation, which is
A. the position from which one views an egocentric genealogy.
B. the rules people use to determine their ethnic affiliation to a group.
C. the process by which people choose their postmarital residence.
D. the system by which people in a society reckon their kin relationships.
E. people’s emic perspective on family values.
Who was studied at a distance during the 1940s in an attempt to predict the behavior of
the political enemies of the United States?
A. the Koreans and English
B. the Yanomami and Betsileo
C. the Malagasy
D. the Germans and Japanese
E. the Brazilians and Indonesians
The tendency to view one’s own culture as superior and to use one’s own standards and
values in judging others is called
A. patriotism.
B. ethnocentrism.
C. moral relativism.
D. cultural relativism.
E. illiteracy.
Migration and rapid population growth are fueling multiculturalism in countries like the
United States and Canada.
Susan Montague and Robert Morais (1981) argue that Americans appreciate football
because it presents a miniaturized and simplified version of modern organizations.
These researchers
A. suggest that football, with its territorial incursion and violence, is popular because
Americans are violent people.
B. link football’s values, particularly teamwork, to those associated with business.
C. argue that football allows spectators to vicariously realize their own hostile and
aggressive tendencies.
D. suggest that football is a peculiarly American pastime because of our wartime
history.
E. argue that football should be regulated the same way we regulate corporations.
Cases where local communities use modern technology to preserve and revise their
traditions
A. are examples of hidden ethnocide.
B. are becoming more common.
C. contradict Gramsci’s theory of hegemony.
D. are becoming increasingly rare, due to the cost of this technology.
E. suggest that modern technology is always an agent of cultural imperialism.
In recent times, many foraging groups have been exposed to the idea of food production
but have never adopted it. Why?
A. They did not have the skills or tools to do so.
B. Their own economies provided a perfectly adequate and nutritious diet, with a lot
less work.
C. People naturally resist change, especially foragers.
D. They had to ask permission from the state to do so.
E. They did not realize the advantages of food production.
An ascribed status is a status that
A. people have little or no choice about occupying.
B. you choose for yourself.
C. you earn, as when a successful law student becomes a lawyer.
D. has a position of dominance in society; for example, that of a king.
E. is based on standardized test scores.
What is one of the most fundamental key assumptions that anthropologists share?
A. There are no universals, so cross-cultural research is bound to fail.
B. A degree in philosophy is the best way to produce good ethnography.
C. We can draw conclusions about human nature by studying a single society.
D. Anthropologists cannot agree on what anthropology is, much less share key
assumptions.
E. A comparative, cross-cultural approach is essential to study the human condition.
In understanding the problems that have arisen in attempts at human racial
classification, why is it important to understand the difference between genotype and
phenotype?
A. The phenotypical traits typically used to classify humans into races go together as
genetic units.
B. Phenotypical similarities and differences always have a genetic basis.
C. Attempts at human racial classification have typically used genotypic traits like
blood type as markers of common ancestry, and these traits pass on from generation to
generation in discrete bundles.
D. Although phenotypic characteristics may change, the genetic material of populations
stays the same for a long time.
E. Attempts at human racial classification typically used phenotypic traits like skin
color as markers of common ancestry, but many such traits do not reflect the existence
of shared genetic material. Instead, they are often the result of different populations
biologically adapting to similar environmental stressors in similar ways.
In Spanish-speaking Latin America, social scientists and politicians favor which term
over indio (Indian), the colonial term that the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors used
to refer to the native inhabitants of the Americas?
A. indgena (indigenous person)
B. civilian
C. citizen
D. cultural patrimony
E. autochthon
Which of the following statements about sociolinguists is NOT true?
A. They are concerned more with performance than with competence.
B. They look at society and at language.
C. They are concerned with linguistic change.
D. They focus on surface structure.
E. They are more interested in the rules that govern language than the actual use of
language in everyday life.
What term refers to the ideological justification for outsiders to guide native groups in
specific directions?
A. development ideology
B. intervention philosophy
C. coercive philosophy
D. development philosophy
E. intrusive ideology