1) What is the most important social organization for an individual? Why?
Family is the most important social organization for an individual because it serves as the most immediate set of relationships and social cues.
2) Describe how language is an important feature of culture.
Language is an important feature of culture because it fosters communication, transmits cultural norms, and helps form a social identity.
3) Arts and literature are often a means of teaching about cultural values, but what other function(s) do they serve?
Arts and literature also serve as a means of commentary on the world within and outside of the culture. Arts and literature provide meaningful feedback on norms, values, and attitudes.
4) What is the cultural function of religion?
Religion provides people with support and direction in addressing life’s most fundamental questions about existence and purpose.
5) Identify four primary economic systems: a.
Traditional b.
Market c.
Command d.
Mixed
How does the type of economy employed in any given society reflect its broader culture?
The type of economy employed in a given society reflects the relationships between the state (i.e. government) and the people. A centrally controlled economy indicates a lack of trust between the people and the institution of government, while a more open economy indicates a market-freedom that suggests trust between the people and their government.
6) What does the governmental system of a given society tell you about the relationships between people and institutions?

As is the case with economic systems, governmental systems reflect the nature of relationships between people and their formal institutions. Republican governments tend to reflect a validated desire of the people to have a say in their governance; non-republican governments tend to be more authoritative and perhaps less trusting and empowering of the people.
7) Define ethnocentrism: Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging other cultures by one’s own standards, values, and norms. It fosters a (usually unconscious) feeling of cultural superiority.
8) Define cultural materialism: Cultural materialism is a theory that explains aspects of culture, such as religious beliefs, as adaptations to the physical or material conditions of life in a particular society, especially as these relate to geography, climate, and population.
9) Define cultural relativism: Cultural relativism suggests than an individual's beliefs and behaviors should be understood in the context of that individual's culture and not viewed through the lens of different cultural attitudes and norms.
10) Define postmodernism: Postmodernism is an anthropological theory that rejects broad, sweeping, universal truths and poses that every aspect of life is ultimately relative to the individual. Background influences, experiences, and cultural norms shape a person's understanding of what is right, wrong, good, bad, true, and untrue.
11) Does cultural relativism exist as an attempt to address problems caused by ethnocentrism? Explain.
Cultural relativism addresses the problems of ethnocentrism by encouraging anthropologists (and others!) to explore every culture as unique unto itself rather than constantly forming comparisons.
12) Given what you’ve learned about culture, does it make sense that postmodernism flatly rejects all universal norms? Explain.

It does make sense that postmodernists choose to reject universality – if cultures are distinctive and unique to the environments that give rise to them, there are probably very few universally valuable norms.
On the other hand, if the world is getting smaller – as many anthropologists
contend – then through the advent of globalization, universality should be becoming more common.
13) What does it mean when anthropologists assert that “culture is adaptive?”
Culture is adaptive in that people adopt methods to survive in different environments.
14) Provide two examples that illustrate the principle that culture is cumulative. a.
Each generation tries to improve upon the survival methods of the generation before. b.
Technological, medical, educational, scientific, and governmental advancements often build from their predecessors.
15) If culture is non-instinctive, then how do individuals develop within the same basic set of cultural norms and parameters as their families?
Individuals develop their attitudes and beliefs by being socialized into a given culture by their family, friends, peers, and other cultural influences.
16) What is generally the basis for “culture shock?”
Culture shock usually takes place when there are rapid, substantive changes in the culture or lifestyle of a given society.
17) Describe the two ways in which culture is dynamic: a.
Invention: Culture can be modified through invention, which tangibly or otherwise clearly and deliberately alters a cultural characteristic.

b.
Diffusion: Culture can be modified through diffusion, which transmits cultural traits from other groups of people.
18) Given what you know about culture, justify the notion that the world is “becoming smaller.”
Cultural diffusion is rendering the world smaller through the sharing of traits, norms, systems of government and economy, and commercial institutions.
19) Briefly describe one way that humans manifest as instinctively social creatures.
We know that humans are instinctively social because newborn babies thrive when nurtured by human contact.
20) What is the difference between isolation and ostracism?
Isolation is a denial of social contact that deliberately separates individuals as a means of punishment or protection.
Ostracism is a more passive denial of social contact that is a less formal (but still concrete) rejection by one’s peers.
21) Explain why many common alternatives to human interaction defy the idea that some people are perfectly content with social isolation.
“Alone time” is a bit of a myth in many (but not all) contexts because the diversions people usually seek out when they’re alone tend to be recreations of human social activity (i.e. books, TV, social media, games, etc.).
22) How do humans alter their behavior to fit the social norms of their groups?
People modify their actions in many ways depending on the norms of the social groups they’re with at the time, such as:
Code-switching (language changes)
Points of discussion (interest and attitude changes)
Activities (behavior changes)

23) Describe how affiliations differ between small-scale and large-scale societies.
Small-scale affiliations rely more strongly on kinship, or family ties.
Large-scale affiliations rely more strongly on institutional, or group-based ties.
24) Explain how social groups are influential in forming an individual’s personal identity. Use specific examples.
Social groups are influential in forming an individual’s personal identity in that group affiliations are often a means of describing who we are, what we do, what we like, what compels us to act, etc. Some groups – such as race, ethnicity, and citizenship – are socially constructed but not typically aspects of our lives over which we exercise much control. Other social groups – such as education, occupation, and leisure activities – typically (although not always) involve more personal choice.
25) Given what you know about the development of culture, explain how ethnocentrism is so prevalent in the world today.
Ethnocentrism is prevalent (despite rampant globalization) because social media, access to digital technology, and travel opportunities have exposed a much greater degree of human culture than ever before. Consequently, video and still images, countless research studies, charitable organizations, and governmental interest have led to distinctions between the “developed,” developing,” and “underdeveloped” worlds – all of which impose judgments on societies based on an ethnocentric concept of what a “developed” society and its counterparts look like.