Test Bank for Mirror for Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology,
13th Edition by Conrad Kottak
Chapter 01 13e
Answers Included
1)
This chapter begins with a commonly heard opinion: "People are pretty much the same
all over the world." Why is this assumption often wrong? How might your consideration of this
understanding affect how you would design an anthropological study?
2)
What is culture? How do anthropologists define and study culture?
3)
What does holism refer to? Why is the concept central to anthropology? How does this
concept relate to the "four-field" approach within the discipline? Have you encountered this
concept in any of your other classes?
4)
This chapter provides an example of human adaptation to high altitude to illustrate the
various forms of cultural and biological adaptation. Can you think of another example that
illustrates the broad capacity of humans to adapt both biologically and culturally?
1
5)
What doesbiocultural perspective refer to? If you are planning to major in the biological
sciences or planning a career as a medical doctor or clinical researcher, how might a minor in
anthropology complement your education? If you are thinking of majoring in the humanities,
how might a minor in anthropology complement your education?
6)
This chapter considers differences and similarities between anthropology and other
academic fields such as sociology. What about history?
7)
Anthropology is the study of
A) humans around the world and through time.
B) the psychological stages of human development.
C) myths in industrial societies.
D) the evolution of religion.
E) long-term psychological adaptation.
2
8)
Anthropology as a holistic science refers to the study of the whole of the human
condition: the past, the present, and the future of
blank.
A) math, physics, and astronomy
B) biology, society, language, and culture
C) faith and religion across the world
D) geography and cartography
E) ancient civilizations and archaeological remains
9)
As humans organize their lives and adapt to different environments, our abilities to learn,
think symbolically, use language, and employ tools and other products
A) rest on certain features of human biology that make culture, which is not itself
biological, possible.
B) have made some human groups more cultured than others.
C) are shared with other animals capable of organized group life—such as baboons,
wolves, and even ants.
D) prove that only fully developed adults have the capacity for culture; children lack the
capacity for culture until they mature.
E) rest on certain features of human biology that make culture itself a biological
phenomenon.
10)
Which of the following statements about culture isfalse?
A) Culture guides the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to it.
B) Culture is passed on from generation to generation.
C) Cultural forces consistently mold and shape human biology and behavior.
D) Culture is a key aspect of human adaptability and success.
E) Culture is passed on genetically to future generations.
3
11)
What is the process by which children learn a particular cultural tradition?
A) biological adaptation
B) ethnology
C) ethnography
D) acculturation
E) enculturation
12)
This chapter's description of how humans cope with low oxygen pressure in high
altitudes illustrates
A) how in matters of life or death, biology is ultimately more important than culture.
B) the need for anthropologists to pay more attention to human adaptation in extreme
environments.
C) human capacities for cultural and biological adaptation, the latter involving both
genetic and physiological adaptations.
D) how human plasticity has decreased ever since we embraced a sedentary lifestyle
some 10,000 years ago.
E) how biological adaptations are effective only when they are genetic.
13)
The presence of more efficient respiratory systems to extract oxygen from the air among
human populations living at high elevations is an example of which form of adaptation?
A) genetic adaptation
B) symbolic adaptation
C) cultural adaptation
D) short-term physiological adaptation
E) long-term physiological adaptation
4
14)
Over time, humans have become increasingly dependent on which of the following in
order to cope with the range of environments they have occupied in time and space?
A) social institutions, such as the state, that coordinate collective action
B) social and cultural means of adaptation
C) biological means of adaptation, mostly thanks to advanced medical research
D) technological means of adaptation, such as the creation of virtual worlds that allow us
to escape from day-to-day reality
E) a holistic and comparative approach to problem-solving
15)
Today's global economy and communications link all contemporary people, directly or
indirectly, in the modern world system. People must now cope with forces generated by
progressively larger systems—the region, the nation, and the world. For anthropologists studying
contemporary forms of adaptation, why might this be a challenge?
A) Anthropological research tools do not work in this new modern world system, making
their contributions less valuable.
B) A more dynamic world system, with greater and faster movements of people across
space, speeds up the process of evolution, making the study of genetic adaptations more difficult.
C) Since cultures are tied to place, people moving around and connecting across space
means the end of culture, and thus the end of anthropology.
D) According to Marcus and Fischer (1986), "The cultures of world peoples need to be
constantly rediscovered as these people reinvent them in changing historical circumstances."
E) Truly isolated indigenous communities, anthropology's traditional and ongoing study
focus, are becoming harder to find.
16)
The academic discipline of anthropology includes four main subfields. They are
sociocultural anthropology, anthropological archaeology, biological anthropology,
and
blank.
5
A) psychosociological archaeology
B) linguistic anthropology
C) scientific–humanistic studies
D) genetical anthropology
E) biological archaeology
17)
What are the four subdisciplines of anthropology?
A) archaeology, biological anthropology, applied linguistics, and applied anthropology
B) biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and
archaeology
C) medical anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, and cultural anthropology
D) primatology, ethnology, cultural anthropology, and paleoscatology
E) genetic anthropology, physical anthropology, psychological anthropology, and
anthropology and linguistics
18)
Anthropologists' early interest in Native North Americans
A) was replaced in the 1930s by the two-field approach.
B) was more important than interest in the relation between biology and culture in the
development of U.S. four-field anthropology.
C) is unique to European anthropology.
D) is an important historical reason for the development of four-field anthropology in the
U.S.
E) proved early on that culture is a function of race.
19)
How are the four subfields of U.S. anthropology unified?
6
A) Each subfield studies the human capacity for language.
B) The subfields really are not unified; their grouping into one discipline is a historical
accident.
C) Each subfield studies human biological variability.
D) Each subfield studies human genetic variation through time and space.
E) Each subfield studies human variation through time and space.
20)
What is one of the most fundamental key assumptions that anthropologists share?
A) We can draw conclusions about human nature by studying a single society.
B) Anthropologists cannot agree on what anthropology is, much less share key
assumptions.
C) A degree in philosophy is the best way to produce good ethnography.
D) A comparative, cross-cultural approach is essential to study the human condition.
E) There are no universals, so cross-cultural research is bound to fail.
21)
Cultural anthropologists carry out their fieldwork in
A) the ruins of ancient civilizations.
B) typically in the third world nations.
C) mostly in formerly colonized countries.
D) all kinds of societies.
E) factories.
22)
Ethnography is the
7
A) generalizing aspect of cultural anthropology.
B) fieldwork component of cultural anthropology.
C) study of biological adaptability.
D) cross-cultural comparative component of cultural anthropology.
E) preliminary data that sociologists use to develop survey research.
23)
Based on his observation that contact between neighboring tribes had existed since
humanity’s beginnings and covered enormous areas, Franz Boas argued that
A) general anthropologists were wrong to focus too much attention on biology.
B) even the earliest foragers engaged in warfare.
C) language must have originated among the Neandertals.
D) cultures should not be treated as isolated phenomena.
E) biology, not culture, was responsible for the vast majority of human diversity.
24)
What component of cultural anthropology is comparative and focused on building upon
our understanding of how cultural systems work?
A) data collection
B) fieldwork
C) data entry
D) ethnology
E) archaeology
25)
Archaeologists studying sunken ships off the coast of Florida or analyzing the content of
modern garbage are examples of how
8
A) Hollywood has popularized archaeology in recent movies, making it a popular college
major.
B) archaeologists study the culture of historical and even living peoples.
C) archaeology is going through an identity crisis, with its practitioners questioning the
discipline's focus on studying prehistory.
D) archaeology is free from having to worry about the impact of its work on people.
E) training in the use of research skills for extreme environments—such as landfills and
the deep sea—are worth the time, resources, and risk for the sake of the anthropological
knowledge gained.
26)
Which of the following best describes biological anthropology?
A) the study of biology through soil and decomposing matter
B) the study of human biological diversity
C) the study of language and linguistic diversity
D) the study of biological and cultural approaches to a given problem
E) the study of public health
27)
The study of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman simians is termed
blank.
A) paleontology
B) primatology
C) ornithology
D) osteology
E) semiology
28)
Which of the following subfields of anthropology studies language in its social and
cultural context, throughout the world and over time?
9
A) demographical anthropology
B) archaeological anthropology
C) palaeoecological anthropology
D) linguistic anthropology
E) symbiological anthropology
29)
Which of the following dimensions of anthropology employs anthropological data,
perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems?
A) public ethnography
B) applied anthropology
C) academic anthropology
D) social archaeology
E) medical anthropology
30)
Applied anthropology
A) originated at the same time that anthropology's four-field approach became
established among early-20th-century U.S. academics.
B) focuses on preparing emerging academic scholars to improve their grant application
skills.
C) is concerned with the relationships between anthropological knowledge and the uses
of that knowledge in the world beyond anthropology.
D) has yet to be recognized by the American Anthropological Association.
E) is a European phenomenon.
31)
During a massive construction project, a city came across a treasure trove of
archeological sites under its streets. It decided to call in an expert to help decide what needed to
be saved and how to preserve information about what was not saved. This expert's role is best
described to be in the field of
10
A) cultural resource management.
B) sociological anthropology.
C) historic preservation.
D) sociolinguistics.
E) biological anthropology.
32)
Anthropology is a science, yet it has been suggested that anthropology is among the most
humanistic of all academic fields. This is because
A) the field, particularly in the United States, traces its origins to philosophy and
literature.
B) of its fundamental respect for human diversity.
C) its main object of study is humans.
D) its findings are best expressed with the tools of the humanities.
E) it puts so much emphasis on the study of culture that cannot be studied scientifically.
33)
34)
35)
Anthropologists study only non-Western cultures.
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
Humans can adapt to their surroundings through both biological and cultural means.
Culture is not itself biological but rests on certain features of human biology.
11
36)
Adaptation refers to the processes by which organisms cope with environmental forces
and stresses, such as those posed by climate and topography.
⊚
true
⊚
false
37)
Anthropologists agree that a comparative, cross-cultural approach is unnecessary as long
as researchers are diligent in their work.
⊚
true
⊚
false
38)
Ethnography involves the collection of data used to create an account of a particular
community, society, or culture.
39)
40)
41)
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
Ethnomusicology is one of the four main subfields of anthropology.
Archaeologists study only prehistoric communities.
Biological anthropologists study only human bones.
12
⊚
⊚
true
false
42)
As an academic discipline, anthropology falls under both the social sciences and the
humanities.
⊚
true
⊚
false
43)
The differences between sociology and cultural anthropology are becoming increasingly
distinct.
⊚
true
⊚
false
44)
Applied anthropology encompasses any use of the knowledge and/or techniques of its
four subfields to identify, assess, and solve theoretical problems.
⊚
true
⊚
false
45)
Anthropological archaeology reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and
cultural patterns through anecdotal records passed through the generations.
⊚
true
⊚
false
46)
Archaeologists may infer cultural transformations by observing changes in the size and
type of sites and the distance between them.
⊚
true
⊚
false
13
47)
The forces of globalization and industrial production link all contemporary people,
directly or indirectly, in the modern world system.
⊚
true
⊚
false
14
Answer Key
Test name: Chap 01_13e_Kottak
7) A
8) B
9) A
10) E
11) E
12) C
13) E
14) B
15) D
16) B
17) B
18) D
19) E
20) D
21) D
22) B
23) D
24) D
25) B
26) B
27) B
28) D
29) B
30) C
31) A
32) B
15
33) FALSE
34) TRUE
35) TRUE
36) TRUE
37) FALSE
38) TRUE
39) FALSE
40) FALSE
41) FALSE
42) TRUE
43) FALSE
44) FALSE
45) FALSE
46) TRUE
47) TRUE
16
Chapter 02 13e
1)
What does it mean to say that culture is all-encompassing?
2)
How has this chapter challenged your understanding of the concept of human nature?
3)
What are the different kinds of learning? On which kind (or kinds) of learning is culture
based? How is culture transmitted across generations?
4)
Explain the distinctions among cultural universals, generalities, and particularities, and
give examples of each.
1
5)
Agency refers to the actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming
and transforming culture. Describe examples in your own life that illustrate the relationship
between agency and culture.
6)
What does it mean to say that there are levels of culture? What are they? How do cultural
traits extend to a broader geographic area?
7)
What are ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, and how do they affect the work of
anthropologists? How do they influence your own life in an increasingly diverse society?
8)
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?
2
9)
Which of the following statements about culture is true?
A) It developed among nonhuman primates around 10,000 years ago.
B) It is acquired by humans as members of society through the process of enculturation.
C) It is more developed in industrial nations than among hunters and gatherers.
D) It is being destroyed by electronic media.
E) It is the exclusive domain of the elite.
10)
Which of the following statements about enculturation isfalse?
A) It occurs through a process of conscious and unconscious learning.
B) It may involve direct teaching.
C) It results in internalization of a cultural tradition.
D) It is the exchange of cultural features that results when two or more groups come into
consistent firsthand contact.
E) It is the process by which culture is learned and transmitted across generations.
11)
Regarding the human capacity for culture, anthropologists agree that
3
A) although women and men both share the emotional and intellectual capacities for
culture, at the population level there is less variability in these capacities among men than among
women.
B) both mental abilities and mental disabilities are evenly distributed among individuals
of all cultures.
C) because human populations differ in their emotional and intellectual capacities, the
ability to learn culture differs among societies.
D) although an individual's genetic endowment does not affect that person's ability to
learn cultural traditions, it does affect his or her capacity to change culture creatively.
E) although individuals differ in their emotional and intellectual capacities, all human
populations have equivalent capacities for culture.
12)
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined culture as ideas based on cultural learning and
symbols. What is a symbol?
A) something verbal or nonverbal within a particular language or culture that comes to
stand for something else, with no necessary or natural connection to the thing for which it stands
B) a distinctive or unique cultural trait, pattern, or integration that can be translated into
other cultures
C) any element within a culture that distinguishes it from other cultures, precisely
because it is difficult to translate
D) a linguistic sign within a particular language that comes to stand for something else in
another language
E) something verbal or nonverbal with a nonarbitrary association with what it symbolizes
13)
What does it mean to say that humans use culture instrumentally?
4
A) Culture is a human construct.
B) Culture is instrumental in the creation of societies.
C) People use culture to fulfill their basic biological needs for food, drink, shelter,
comfort, and reproduction.
D) People use culture to develop artistic endeavors, including musical instruments and
visual arts.
E) People use culture to advance civilization.
14)
What do anthropologists mean when they say culture is shared?
A) Culture is universally regarded as more important than the concept of the individual.
B) Culture is an attribute of particular individuals.
C) Passive enculturation is accomplished by more than one person.
D) Culture is what ensures that all people raised in the same society have the same
opinions.
E) Culture is an attribute of individuals as members of groups.
15)
Identify an example of a maladaptive cultural trait.
A) overconsumption of processed foods
B) individuals seeking informal support to satisfy emotional needs
C) individualism seeking formal support to conform to social norms
D) industrialization of manufacture of essential everyday items
E) use of machinery in agriculture
16)
People must eat, but culture teaches us what, when, and how to do so. This is an example
of how
5
A) culture takes the natural biological urges we share with other animals and teaches us
how to express them in particular ways.
B) "human nature" is a cultural construction, an idea we have in our minds that has
nothing to do with true nature.
C) we are all just uncultured animals.
D) individuals are powerless to alter the strong relationship between nature and culture.
E) biology dominates culture.
17)
Something verbal or nonverbal, within a particular language or culture, that stands for
something else is known as a
blank.
A) taboo
B) symbol
C) transmitter
D) substitute
E) talisman
18)
Which of the following statements about culture isfalse?
A) It is acquired by all humans, as members of society, through enculturation.
B) Everyone is cultured.
C) It encompasses rule-governed, shared, symbol-based, learned behavior, as well as
beliefs transmitted across the generations.
D) It is transmitted genetically.
E) It has an evolutionary basis.
19)
Culture can be adaptive or maladaptive. It is maladaptive when
6
A) cultural traits diminish the survival of particular individuals but not others.
B) cultural traits, patterns, and inventions disrupt the world economy, causing
international discontent.
C) it threatens the core values of a culture that guarantee its integration.
D) it exhibits cultural traits that are not shared with the majority of the group.
E) cultural traits, patterns, and inventions threaten the group's continued survival and
reproduction and thus its very existence.
20)
The human capacity for culture has an evolutionary basis that extends back perhaps 3
million years. This date corresponds to
A) evidence of hunting and the use of fire to cook tough meats.
B) early toolmakers, whose products survive in the archaeological record.
C) the advent of anatomically modern primates.
D) a genetic mutation that caused an increase in brain size and complexity.
E) the earliest production of cave art found in South Africa.
21)
Why does this chapter on culture include a section that describes similarities and
differences between humans and apes, our closest relatives?
A) to better define culture as a capacity that distinguishes members of the zoological
familyhominidae from anatomically modern humans
B) to stress that there is no such thing as human nature
C) to emphasize culture's evolutionary basis
D) to illustrate how evolution is just a theory
E) to promote the study of primatology, which has nothing to do with human culture
22)
Many human traits reflect the fact that our primate ancestors lived in trees. These traits
include all of the followingexcept
7
A) learning ability based on a large brain.
B) echolocation, made possible by overlapping visual fields.
C) depth and color vision.
D) substantial parental investment in a limited number of offspring.
E) grasping ability.
23)
Which of the following is a mechanism of cultural change?
A) generational enculturation
B) diffusion
C) ethnocentrism
D) particularity
E) cultural relativism
24)
Which of the following is an example of cultural generality?
A) vegetarianism
B) immortality
C) illiteracy
D) solo living
E) the incest taboo
25)
Which of the following is true of cultural change through diffusion?
8
A) It doesn't commonly happen because cultures are isolated
B) In today's world, much international diffusion is indirect—culture is spread by mass
media and information technology.
C) It occurs through independent human invention
D) In the current world, finding creative solutions to problems is the main means of
diffusion of culture
E) It is the ongoing exchange of cultural features that results when groups have
continuous firsthand contact.
26)
What are cultural particularities?
A) cultural traits of individuals rather than of groups
B) traits unique to a given culture, not shared with others
C) different levels of culture
D) the most general aspect of culture patterns
E) traits isolated from other traits in the same culture
27)
All of the following are evidence of the tendency to view culture as a processexcept
A) interest in public, collective, and individual dimensions of day-to-day life.
B) attention to agency in anthropological analysis.
C) practice theory.
D) interest in how acts of resistance can make and remake culture.
E) analysis that attempts to establish boundaries between cultures.
28)
What process is most responsible for the existence of international culture?
9
A) cultural diffusion
B) dendritic acculturation
C) gene flow
D) ethnocentrism
E) cultural relativism
29)
Which of the following is a major contrast between humans and other primates?
A) Unlike primate females, human females have a visible estrus cycle.
B) Unlike humans, primates practice exogamy exclusively.
C) Unlike humans, primate adolescents do not disperse, leaving kinship ties intact
lifelong.
D) Primate pair bonds for mating are more exclusive and more durable than are those of
humans.
E) Unlike primates, humans maintain lifelong ties with sons and daughters.
30)
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.
31)
In anthropology, cultural relativism is not a moral position but a methodological one. It
states that
10
A) to understand another culture, we must use tactics to try to jar people so that their true
views are revealed.
B) some cultures are relatively better than others.
C) to understand another culture fully, we must try to understand how the people in that
culture see things.
D) to bring about desired cultural change, anthropologists should act as emissaries of the
most evolved cultural values.
E) because cultural values vary between cultures, they cannot be analyzed and compared.
32)
How are cultural rights different from human rights?
A) The United Nations protects human rights but not cultural rights.
B) Cultural rights are vested in groups, not in individuals.
C) The termcultural rights is a politically correct synonym for human rights.
D) Human rights are real, whereas cultural rights are just perceived.
E) Cultural rights are more clear-cut than human rights.
33)
Human rights are seen as inalienable. This means that
A) they are vested in groups and not individuals.
B) no one can abuse them.
C) anthropologists have no moral grounds to question them.
D) nations cannot abridge or terminate them.
E) they are universally accepted by all individuals.
34)
Although rap music originated in the United States, it is now popular all over the world.
Which of the following mechanisms of cultural change is responsible for this?
11
A) acculturation
B) enculturation
C) colonization
D) diffusion
E) independent invention
35)
What is the term for the kind of cultural change that results when two or more cultures
have consistent firsthand contact?
A) independent invention
B) acculturation
C) enculturation
D) imperialism
E) colonization
36)
What is the primary and neutral meaning of globalization as it is applicable to
anthropology?
A) global connectedness and linkages, and not any kind of political position
B) opposition to global free trade
C) the impact of the world on the rest of the universe
D) the promotion of the interests of multinational corporations at the expense of farmers
and workers
E) the efforts by international financial powers to create a global free market for goods
and services
37)
Which of the following is an example of independent invention, the process by which
people in different societies have innovated and changed in similar but independent ways?
12
A) acculturation
B) language
C) globalization
D) agriculture
E) culture
38)
Culture helps us define the world in which we live, to express feelings and ideas, and to
guide our behavior and perceptions.
39)
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
Culture is transmitted by both formal and informal instruction, but not by observation.
40)
Most ethnographers try to be objective, accurate, and sensitive in their accounts of other
cultures. The presence of objectivity, sensitivity, and a cross-cultural perspective means that
anthropologists must ignore international standards of justice and morality.
41)
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
Language is one of the distinctive possessions of Homo sapiens.
13
42)
Cultures are integrated, patterned systems in which, if one part of the system is changed,
other parts may also change.
⊚
true
⊚
false
43)
Although culture is one of the principal means humans use to adapt to their environment,
some cultural traits can be harmful to a group's survival.
44)
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
While cultural abilities have a biological basis, they do not have an evolutionary basis.
45)
Although humans do employ tools much more than any other animal does, tool use also
turns up among several nonhuman species, including birds, beavers, sea otters, and apes.
46)
⊚
true
⊚
false
⊚
true
⊚
false
Hunting is a distinctive human activity not shared with the apes.
47)
Exogamy, marriage outside one's kin or local group, is a major cultural contrast between
humans and other primates.
14