Deck 4: Power and Culture: an Anthropologists View

Question 1

Biological anthropologists are interested in the evolution of the human species. In their work, they examine

A) theories of warfare.
B) theories of evolution.
C) how societies communicate.
D) how societies form and develop.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Functionalism assumes that there are certain minimum biological needs, as well as social and psychological needs, that must be satisfied if individuals and society are to survive.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Sanctions are rewards and punishments bestowed for conforming to or violating norms. Conformity to cultural norms depends exclusively on sanctions.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The habitual association of human beings in communities or local groups generally leads to the introduction of some form of a more formal political organization where power is exercised.

Question 5

The culture of any society represents generalizations about the behavior of many members of that society, and it can describe the personal habits of any one individual.

Question 6

The basic power structures are voluntary alliances of families and clans who acknowledge the same leaders. They also

A) work together in economic enterprises.
B) agree to certain standards of living.
C) have no established norms regarding conduct of warfare.
D) do not cooperate outside of economics.

Question 7

Anthropologists tend to make cultural generalizations that focus on aggregate behaviors within a society or values and beliefs that are commonly shared.

Question 8

Anthropologists in their professional roles do not speculate frequently about the truth or falsehood of religious beliefs. Instead they are concerned with why religion is found in all societies and how and why religions vary from one society to another.

Question 9

An artifact is the physical product of a culture. An artifact can be anything from a piece of pottery or a religious object from an ancient society. Physical products from modern societies, however, are not artifacts.

Question 10

Family is traditionally defined as a residential kin group. Typically, family consists of only an adult female and her dependent children.

Question 11

Throughout the world, monogamy is the most widespread marriage form, probably because the gender ratio is near one hundred in all societies.

Question 12

A tribe is a centralized society in which power is concentrated in a single chief who heads a ranked hierarchy of people.

Question 13

Cultural relativity-suspending judgment of other societies' customs, practices, and institutions-enables anthropologists to examine aspects of culture and determine their function within that society.

Question 14

The patriarchal structure that typifies the family in an agricultural economy is little changed by the new opportunities for women in the advanced industrial nations.

Question 15

Power is exercised in four broad purposes in all societies. Which of the following is not a function of power in a society?

A) To maintain internal peace
B) To provide a common culture
C) To organize and direct community enterprise
D) To rule and exploit

Question 16

Even in the least-developed societies, power relationships emerge for the purposes of maintaining order, organizing economic enterprise, conducting offensive and defensive warfare, and ruling over subject peoples.

Question 17

Multiculturalism generally refers to acknowledging and promoting multiple cultures and subcultures. It seeks to end cultural diversity.

Question 18

Archaeology studies human cultures through their physical and material remains to analyze the behaviors of past cultures. Through the analysis of something as simple as pottery remain, anthropologists are not likely to learn much about a society.

Question 19

Anthropologists using the materialistic perspective focus on how people spend their money in their specific environmental setting.

Question 20

To an anthropologist, marriage means a socially approved sexual and economic union between a man and a woman, intended to be more or less permanent and implying social roles between the spouses and their parents.

Question 21

A cross-cultural comparison reveals that in all societies, most families possess all but which of the following characteristics?

A) A system of roles and expectation based on societal intervention
B) Childbearing and child rearing
C) A common habitation (at some point)
D) Socialization and education of the young

Question 22

Which of the following have been responsible for changes in long-held beliefs in the United States?

A) Increased presence of a common media
B) Scientific research
C) The civil rights and women's movements
D) All of these

Question 23

Linguistic anthropology analyzes a society in terms of human communication, including its origins, history, and contemporary variation and change. How individuals speak belies information about which of the following?

A) Multiculturalism in a society
B) The structure and evolution of a society
C) Sexism in a society
D) None of these

Question 24

Culture is people's learned and shared behaviors and beliefs or the ways of life that are common to a society. Variations in those ways of life within a society are called

A) subcultures.
B) mores.
C) sanctions.
D) rituals.

Question 25

Functionalism assumes that there are certain minimum __________ needs, as well as social and psychological needs that must be satisfied if individuals and society are to __________.

A) financial; get rich
B) biological; survive
C) cultural; be remembered
D) spiritual; attain a state of grace

Question 26

Idealism focuses on the importance of ideas in determining culture. Idealists assert that the components of needs and the resources to meet them are

A) constructed by the government.
B) determined by human instinct.
C) socially constructed.
D) individually constructed.

Question 27

Culture is communicated by the socialization process. Some agents of socialization are

A) the family.
B) schools.
C) the media.
D) all of these.

Question 28

Believing that one's culture should be the benchmark by which to measure other cultures is called

A) ethnocentrism.
B) idealism.
C) intensification.
D) cultural relativism.

Question 29

Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures solely in terms of one's own culture. Cultural relativity is

A) suspending judgment of other society's customs, practices, and institutions.
B) another word for ethnocentrism.
C) judging other cultures in terms of the nearest neighboring society.
D) all of these.

Question 30

The family is the principal agent of socialization into society. In all societies, the family centers on

A) occupation and income functions.
B) procreation and child-rearing functions.
C) education and advancement functions.
D) religious and military functions.

Question 31

In advanced industrial societies, governments perform some of the traditional functions of the family, further increasing opportunities for women. Which of the following are areas where the government steps in?

A) Formal education
B) Government welfare programs to provide assistance to dependent children
C) Caring for the aged, sick, and others incapable of supporting themselves
D) All of these

Question 32

A religious object from an ancient culture is an example of a(n)

A) norm.
B) sanction.
C) artifact.
D) subculture.

Question 33

Religion is evident in all known cultures. Religion helps us answer such universal questions as:

A) What happens when I die?
B) How will I know if I am marrying the right person?
C) What career path should I follow?
D) None of these

Question 34

Which of the following is not a characteristic of an agrarian society where the family is patriarchal and patrilineal?

A) The male is the dominant authority.
B) Women face a lifetime of childbearing, child rearing, and household work.
C) Families of ten or fifteen children are not uncommon.
D) The wife owns and manages the family's economic enterprise.

Question 35

A symbol is anything that has meaning bestowed on it by those who use it. Words are symbols and language is

A) symbolic communication.
B) direct communication.
C) false communication.
D) codified communication.

Question 36

When a population grows and in response to that growth exploits the environment and uses it more intensely, that process is known as intensification. What are populations forced to do as a result of the detrimental impacts of intensification?

A) Use less energy to make up for growth.
B) Use more energy to meet their material need in other ways and develop creative means of doing so.
C) Cease to exist.
D) Implement population controls.

Question 37

Anthropologists often subdivide a culture into various components in order to simplify thinking about it. The components of culture do not include

A) theories.
B) artifacts.
C) symbols.
D) beliefs.

Question 38

A ___________ perspective in anthropology emphasizes that cultural institutions and practices serve individual or societal needs.

A) functionalist.
B) materialist.
C) idealist.
D) ethnocentric.

Question 39

Beliefs are shared ideas about what is true. Culture includes beliefs about which of the following?

A) Marriage and family
B) Religion and the purpose of life
C) Economic and political organization
D) All of these

Question 40

Shared ideas about what is good and desirable are known as values. Values provide us with standards

A) for appearance.
B) of living.
C) for judging ways of life.
D) for social interactions.

Question 41

Women are more heavily burdened by divorce than men. Which of the following is one of those burdens?

A) Most mothers must forfeit custody.
B) The financial burden on the mother is to support herself and rear the children.
C) The mother usually must pay child support.
D) Divorced mothers rarely find new spouses.

Question 42

Role differentiation in work occurs because of sex-based differences, or biologically rooted differences between women and men. Role differentiation can also occur because of gender-based differences derived from society's

A) preference for males.
B) cultural expectations based on accepted norms.
C) desire to limit the power of women.
D) desire to limit the power of all people.

Question 43

__________ are the rewards or punishments for conforming to or violating cultural norms.

Question 44

What is the relationship between norms, mores, and folkways?

Question 45

What is functionalism?

Question 46

A nation sees itself as "one people" with a common culture, history, institutions, ideology, language, territory, and (often) religion. The claim to nationhood by the United States rests primarily on a common allegiance to

A) God.
B) the founding fathers.
C) the institution of capitalism.
D) the institutions of democracy.

Question 47

Norms are shared rules and expectations about _________.

Question 48

__________ is the union of the wife and two or more husbands.

Question 49

What are cultural generalizations? Provide an example.

Question 50

Anthropologists identify which of the following as a highly centralized, regional society in which power is concentrated in a single chief who is at the head of a ranked hierarchy of people?

A) A tribe
B) A band
C) A chiefdom
D) A state

Question 51

A small group of related families who occupy the same territory and come together to hunt, trade, and make marriage arrangements is a(n)

A) tribe.
B) band.
C) chiefdom.
D) state.

Question 52

Which of the following statements is linked to a theory that attempts to explain male dominance in politics and war in most countries?

A) Men possess more aggressive personalities than women.
B) Men have a higher interest in organized sports.
C) Men lack the ability to satisfactorily perform home-centered tasks.
D) Males communicate more effectively.

Question 53

In some societies, no separate power organization exists outside the family or kinship group. In these societies, there is no continuous or well-defined system of leaders over or above those who head

A) the nation-state.
B) the band.
C) individual families.
D) the chiefdom.

Question 54

When population growth causes increased use and exploitation of the environment, the process is called _________.

Question 55

_________ is all the ways of life common to a society.

Question 56

Although there are differences between societies in the nature of their religious beliefs, all cultures include some beliefs about supernatural powers and about the __________.

Question 57

Describe the purposes for which power in society is exercised.

Question 58

_________ is both the tools and the knowledge humans use to overcome their environment and meet their material needs.

Question 59

Most Americans believe that _________ should be the basis of marriage, but this ideal does not characterize marriages in many other societies.

Question 60

Define multiculturalism.

Question 61

Compare and contrast the perspectives that anthropologists use when examining culture, including functionalism, the materialist perspective, idealism, and cultural relativity.

Question 62

Compare and contrast culture in industrial and agricultural societies. In your response, be sure to discuss the effects of industrialization on family structure.

Question 63

Describe the changes in the nature of the American family unit since 1970, and discuss two reasons behind these changes.

Question 64

Describe the four contributions that anthropological studies impart to our understanding of power relationships in societies.

Question 65

Write an essay that demonstrates how the approaches taken by the four subfields of anthropology give a broad perspective for examining humans, their societies, and the power structures within those societies

Question 66

How and why do anthropologists subdivide culture into various components? Explain the relationship between the components of a culture and the society in which they are found.

Question 67

What is the basis for marriage in societies where romantic love is not the norm?

Question 68

Explain the way that power is organized and centralized in five of the political systems identified in the text.

Question 69

What is the difference between monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry?

Question 70

Describe the characteristics of a chiefdom.

Question 71

Compare and contrast the theories that attempt to explain male dominance? Does any theory seem to explain male dominance best?