Reproduction and Human
Development
(Miller Chapter 4)
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
The BIG Questions
 How are modes of reproduction related
to modes of production?
 How does culture shape fertility in
different contexts?
 How does culture shape personality and
human development over the life cycle?
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Modes of Reproduction
 A mode of reproduction is the
predominant pattern of fertility in a
culture (p. 80).
 Fertility is the number of children a woman
bears, or the rate of population growth.
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Three Modes of Reproduction
 There are three major modes of
reproduction which correlate with
several of the modes of production
 The foraging mode of reproduction
 The agricultural mode of reproduction
 The industrial/informatics mode of
reproduction
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Foraging Mode of Reproduction
 Common among those with a foraging mode
of production
 Moderate birth and death rates
 Average of about 2 children per woman survive to
adulthood
 Value of children: moderate (labor value)
 Children do not do much work
 What work that needs to be done is done mostly
by the adults
 Remember the “original affluent society” – do not have to
do too much work to hunt/gather all that they need to
survive so no need to pull the children into providing for
the family
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Foraging Mode of Reproduction
 Indirect means of fertility control: diet,
breastfeeding, work/exercise,
spontaneous abortion
 Low body fat due to low fat diet and lots of
exercise – suppresses ovulation – fewer
children
 Long length of breastfeeding – suppresses
ovulation – fewer children
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Agricultural Mode of Reproduction
 Common among societies with an
agricultural, horticultural, and pastoralist
mode of production
 High birth rates, moderate or declining death
rates
 Average between 2 and 8 children per woman
 Differ depending on a number of government
policies and other cultural factors
 Value of children: high (labor value)
–
–
–
Need for children to work the land, care for
animals, process foods, etc.
Pronatalism – an ideology promoting many
children (p. 80)
Increased reliance on direct means of birth control
 Increasing specialization: midwives,
herbalists
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Industrial/Informatics Mode
of Reproduction
 Declining population
 Either replacement level fertility in which the
number of births equals the number of deaths,
leading to maintenance of current population size
 Or below-replacement level fertility in which the
number of births is less than the number of
deaths, leading to population decline
 Low fertility and moderate or low mortality
 Leading to aging population in many industrialized
nations
 Value of children: mixed or low (labor)
 Cost of raising children: high
 Highly developed professional specializations
 Mandatory formal schooling for children
 Parents have fewer children and invest more
resources in them
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Industrial/Informatics Mode
of Reproduction
 Social inequality is reflected in population
patterns – stratified reproduction
 Middle- and upper-class people – few children
with high survival rates
 Lower-class – higher fertility and higher mortality
rates
 Government policies may promote births in the
“native” population while discouraging births in the
non-native population
 e.g. France
 Increasing specialization and involvement in
the scientific and medical community of all
aspects of pregnancy and birth
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Changes in the Population of Japan
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Culture and Fertility
Culture affects:
 Sexual intercourse
 Frequency and timing of sexual intercourse
 Fertility control
 Why and when to have a child
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Culture Shapes Reproduction at
Several Levels
Cultural guidelines…
Government
policies…
International
organizations…
•when to start
having sex
•how many
children to have
•when to stop
having sex and
children
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Fertility Decision Making
 At the family level
 At the state level
 At the global level
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Fertility Decision Making
 At the family level
 4 factors are most important in affecting the
desire for children
 Children’s labor value
 High – higher fertility rates
 Children’s value as old-age support for parents
 High – higher fertility rates
 Infant and child mortality rates
 High – higher fertility rates
 Economic costs of children
 High – lower fertility rates
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Fertility Decision Making
 At the family level
 Desire for children may differ based on the parent
 Who does most of the work taking care of the children?
 Families may prefer sons, daughters, or a
combination of both, often depending upon the
culture and the gender division of labor
 Son preference – widespread in Asia and the Middle
East
 Prefer a balanced number of sons and daughters –
Southeast Asia
 Daughter preference – some parts of Africa south of the
Sahara and some Caribbean populations
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Fertility Decision Making
 At the state level
 State governments formulate policies that
affect rates of population growth within
their boundaries
 Vary from being pronatalist (favoring many
births)
 To antinatalist (opposed to many births)
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Fertility Decision Making
 At the state level
 Factors that affect government policies
include…
 Projected jobs and employment levels
 Public services
 Maintaining the tax base
 Filling the ranks of the military
 Maintaining ethnic and regional proportions
 Dealing with population aging
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Fertility Decision Making
 At the global level
 Global corporations such as
pharmaceutical companies and religious
leaders influence country-level and familylevel decision making
 In the 1950s it was popular for Western nations
to promote family planning programs of many
types in industrializing countries
 In the 1990s the U.S. adopted a more restricted
policy toward family planning, withdrew support
for certain features such as abortion, and
began to promote abstinence as the foundation
of population control
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Fertility Control
 People in all cultures since prehistory
have had ways of influencing fertility
 Methods to increase fertility
 Methods to reduce fertility
 Methods to regulate its spacing
 Even among non-industrial cultures
 Research in Afghanistan in the 1980s
found over 500 fertility-regulating
techniques in just one region!
 72% - increasing fertility; 22% - contraceptives;
6% - inducing abortion
 Fertility knowledge held by the everyday
woman rather than just medical specialists in
contrast to more industrialized societies
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Fertility Control
 Direct methods
 Taking medicines or herbs that induce
abortion, act as contraceptives, or increase
fertility
 May involve plant or animal substances
 Taken as pills or teas
 Inhaled as vapors
 Vaginally inserted or rubbed onto the woman’s
stomach
 Condoms
 Cross-culturally, often the women who possess
the most information about these methods
 Indirect methods
 E.g. Long periods of breast feeding to
reduce the chances of conception
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Fertility Control
 Induced abortion
 A review of 400 societies found that induced
abortion was practiced in virtually all of them
 Attitudes towards abortion very greatly
 Methods include…
 Hitting the abdomen
 Starving oneself
 Taking drugs
 Jumping from high places
 Jumping up and down
 Lifting heavy objects
 Doing hard work
 Invasive procedures / surgical procedures
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Fertility Control
 Induced abortion
 Reasons to induce abortion
 Economic reasons
 Mobility
 Pastoralists moving around a lot and carrying heavy
loads so cannot care for many small children at once
 Poverty
 May find abortion preferable to bearing a child that
cannot be fed
 Cultural reasons
 “Illegitimate” child
 Social penalties for bearing an illegitimate child are
often motivations for abortion
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Fertility Control
 Induced abortion
 Governments intervene in family decisions to
regulate access to abortion, either promoting
it or forbidding it
 U.S.
 Abortion legally allowed but the issue is often still hotly
contested
 China
 One-Child per-Couple Policy started in 1978
 Often forced abortions and sterilizations
 Increase in female infanticide because of cultural
preference for sons
 Brazil
 Predominantly Catholic country
 Outlawed abortion
 Still intense poverty, so in practice 1/3 of women had
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abortions
Fertility Control
 New Reproductive Technologies
 In vitro fertilization (IVF)
 Often used among middle- and upper-class
couples in the U.S. who cannot have children the
“natural” way
 Often last resort because of hefty price tag and the
“natural” ways is more highly valued in Western culture
 May be some stigma attached to infertility the
“natural” way
 May be religious objections – Catholic church
 Meanings depend on cultural context
 In Greece it seen as “natural” because it allows women
to realize a key aspect of their feminine nature through
pregnancy and birth
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Fertility Control
 Infanticide
 Infanticide is the deliberate killing of offspring
 Practiced cross-culturally, but is rarely a frequent
practice within a culture
 Direct infanticide
 Death of an infant or child resulting from actions such as
beating, smothering, poisoning, or drowning
 Indirect infanticide
 A more subtle process, may involve prolonged practices
such as food deprivation, failure to take a sick infant to a
clinic, or failure to provide warm clothing in winter
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Fertility Control
 Infanticide
 Motives include…
 Having a “deformed,” very sick, or very ill child
 Sex of the infant
 Unwed mother – “illegitimate” child
 Too many children in the family
 Poverty
 Can occur as a perceived necessity (creating
“angel babies”) rather than as a result of
cruelty
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Infanticide as “Family Planning”
The killing of an
offspring
Direct or indirect
•poverty
•due to child
deformity or
sickness
•if child does not
meet family
expectations
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Personality and the Life Cycle
 Personality is an individual’s patterned and
characteristic way of behaving, thinking, and
feeling (p.88)
 Formed largely through enculturation
 The process by which culture is passed from one
generation to the next and through which individuals
become members of their society
 The process of socialization – learning a culture through
both informal and formal processes
 Also a genetic component to personality

Psychological anthropology is the study of
the interactions between culture and
personality
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Personality and the Life Cycle




Birth and infancy
Childhood
Adolescence
Adulthood
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Birth and Infancy
 The cultural context of birth affects an
infant’s psychological development
 There are a variety of different cultural
practices that occur at birth which are
considered essential for the baby’s physical
and psychological welfare
 Often times will have conflicting views about
what practices are essential between cultures
 Baby born to Turkish immigrant family in a
suburban U.S. hospital (p. 91)
 Often requires someone to act as a cultural
broker – someone who is familiar with the
practices and beliefs of two different cultures and
can promote cross-cultural understanding to
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prevent or mediate conflicts
Birth and Infancy
 Pre-birth
 Babies may also begin to be enculturated when a
child is in the womb
 Baby may hear sounds and feel activity patterns of the
mother
 Birth
 Members of the household play the key role in
enculturating the newborn
 Infant begins to develop a sense of self-awareness
 About 2 years old in industrialized and post-industrial
societies
 A bit sooner in foraging societies
 Co-sleep with a parent (more stimuli, more breast feedings)
leads to quicker rate of neuromotor development
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Birth and Infancy
 Bonding
 Different cultures believe in different times
and ways of bonding with children
 U.S.
 Believe that should start bonding with baby at birth
 Adaptive in low-mortality/low-fertility societies
 Brazil
 Bonding occurs several years after birth
 Adaptive in high-mortality/high-fertility societies
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Birth and Infancy
 Naming
 Personal names are important devices of selfdefinition in all cultures. Without a name an
individual has no self, no identity
 It is through naming that a social group
acknowledges a child’s birthright and establishes it’s
social identity
 Naming varies cross culturally
 Aymara Indians of Bolivia – do not even name a child until
he/she is about 2 and begins to speak the language
 Only then does the child become truly human and fully
accepted into the community
 Inuit – women going through a difficult labor shout out
names of deceased ancestors
 Name called at the time of delivery will be the child’s name.
Belief the spirit helped with that delivery, and the child is then
identified with that spirit
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Birth and Infancy
 Oriented with surrounding world
 Object orientation
 What various objects are
 Which ones are important, which ones are not
 Spatial orientation
 How to get from one place to another
 Mental map of the landscape – memory
 Temporal orientation
 How calendar works
 How past actions are connected to future ones
 Normative orientation
 Values, ideas, and principles
 What types of behaviors are acceptable, and
which are not
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Infancy and Identity
 Sex and Gender in Infancy
 Sex is something that everybody is born with
 Has three biological markers: genitals,
hormones, and chromosomes
 Either male or female
 Gender is a cultural construction and is
highly variable across cultures
 Learned behaviors and ideas attributed to males,
females, or third genders
 Children are taught their gender roles beginning
in infancy
 Does not necessarily correlate to biological
characteristics (sex)
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Gender and Identity
 Gender identity is influenced both by
biology and culture
 Many individuals born with XX (biological
female) or XY (biological male)
 Can choose to be culturally male, female, or a
third gender
 Some individuals are born as intersexuals
(about 1 percent of humans – over 60 million
individuals worldwide)
 People who are born with reproductive organs,
genitalia, and/or sex chromosomes that are not
exclusively male or female
 Hermaphrodite – has both testicular and ovarian tissue
 Can choose or may be forced to be culturally male,
female, or a third gender
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Gender and Identity
 Gender identities can be fluid
 Individuals might change their gender at
different points in their lives
 Transgenders are people who cross over or
occupy a culturally accepted position in the binary
male-female gender construction
 Berdache in some native North American groups
 Biologically a male who opts to wear female clothing,
may engage in intercourse with a man or a woman, and
does female tasks such as basket weaving and poetry
making
 May be chosen by individual or individual’s parents
 Source of pride in that culture
 Amazon – a woman who takes on male roles and
behaviors
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Gender and Identity
 Hijra in India
 Dress and act like women in many ways, but they are
neither truly male nor truly female
 May be dancers or musicians on the street
 Earn a living by begging
 They are a stigmatized group, separated from mainstream
society
 Fa’afafines in Samoa
 Males who take on the identity of females
 Is an accepted option for boys who prefer to dance, clean
house, and care for children and the elderly
 Highly valued – may be able to do the heavy kinds of
labor that most women find difficult
 Sambia people of New Guinea
 Ritual homosexuality – adolescent males engage in
homosexual acts as a pathway to masculinity
 Males then go on to marry females, have a family
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Gender and Identity
 Intersexual, transgendered, and/or homosexual
individuals in U.S.
 Becoming more accepted in our culture, but still endure
much discrimination in many context where 2 genders
and heterosexuality are the norm
 This discrimination takes a psychological toll on a
person
 Hate crimes, wage and benefits discrimination,
high suicide rates
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Gender and Identity
Gender identity and sexual
orientation is determined by a
mix of genetic and cultural factors
Gender pluralism – the existence
within a culture of multiple
categories of femininity, masculinity
and androgyny that are tolerated
and legitimate
“Third genders” – some cultures
permit the expression of varied forms
of sexual orientation: for example,
the berdache
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Childhood and Personality
 Childhood is a relatively recent concept
 The concept of “the child” emerged in the last
few centuries with the growth of industrial
capitalism
 Cross-cultural studies have shown two
general patterns of child rearing (opposite
ends of a spectrum)
 nurturant-responsible
 dependent-dominant
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Childhood and Personality

Nurturant-responsible child rearing
 Emphasizes caring and sharing acts toward other
children
 Aggressive or selfish behavior is actively discouraged
 Idea of the group transcends individualism
 Socializes children to think of themselves in terms of
the larger whole
 Emphasizes obedience and supportiveness of group
 Prominent in areas where extended families raise
children and where decisions are made collectively
 In foraging, egalitarian societies
 In horticultural societies children take on adult responsibilities
at a very young age, sometimes as young as 3 years old,
which contribute significantly to the family’s welfare
 In pastoral societies
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Childhood and Personality

Dependent-dominant child rearing
 Emphasizes independence, self-reliance, and
personal achievement
 Common is societies where self-sufficiency and
personal achievement are important traits for
survival and success
 Children have fewer acts of caregiving, seek
more attention, try to assert dominance over
other children
 Prominent in areas where parent(s) and
offspring are the basic social unit
 In agricultural and industrialized/informatic societies,
children have fewer tasks and less responsibilities
 When they do take on tasks it is often for personal benefit
(i.e. to spend an allowance as they wish) rather than as
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contributions to the family’s welfare
Childhood and Personality
 Often in childhood other individuals
outside the household are brought into the
enculturation process
 Extended relatives
 Peers
 School teachers in societies with formalized
schooling, such as the U.S.
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Adolescence
 Puberty is a time in the human life cycle
that occurs universally and involves a set
of biological markers
 Adolescence is a culturally defined period
of maturation from around the time of
puberty until the attainment of adulthood
 Length of adolescence varies cross-culturally
 Length and activities of adolescence varies by
gender
 Maasai
 Males have a long period of adolescence where they
prepare to be warriors
 Females have virtually no period of adolescence –
get married shortly after puberty
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Adulthood
 Usually thought of as the period of entering into
some form of marriage or long-term relationship
and having children
 In U.S., adulthood is often thought of as
becoming economically self-sufficient
 Often a rite of passage occurs during the
transition from adolescence to adulthood
 May be a period of isolation
 May be circumcision or female genital cutting (FGC)
 Giving birth
 Often include trials of pain and stamina, a time of reflection
and introspection – a ritual transformation – a symbolic death
and rebirth into a new life phase
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Adulthood
 Becoming a mother
 Matrescence is the cultural process of
becoming a mother
 Varies cross-culturally in terms of duration and
meaning
 In U.S. a woman becomes a mother when she gives birth
 In other cultures it can be when conception occurs or
when a woman delivers an infant of the “right” sex or at
the right time period in her life
 Often a number of prenatal taboos, including food
taboos, in cultures
 Proper behavior insures a good delivery and a
healthy baby
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Adulthood
 Becoming a father
 Patrescence is the cultural process of
becoming a father
 Couvade are beliefs and customs applying to a
father during his wife’s pregnancy and delivery
 Often occurs in societies in where father have prominent
roles in child care
 Father is symbolically bearing some of the woman’s birth
pain
 Often involves him lying in a bed around the time of
birth and feeling exhausted and may experience pain
 Proper behavior insures a good delivery and a healthy
baby
 Paternal involvement in child rearing varies crossculturally
 Aka foragers of the Central Africa Republic spend half
their time each day holding or within close reach of their
infants – more likely to kiss and hold them than their
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mothers are
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Example of
paternal
child care
among the
Aka of the
Central
African
Republic
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Adulthood
 Middle Age
 Typically seen as being between 30 and 70
years old in industrial/informatics societies
 Often about 40 years of age in the U.S.
 May have a “mid-life crisis”
 Feelings of restlessness, rebelliousness, and
unhappiness that may lead to family break-ups
 May be because of fear and denial of death
 May occur earlier in societies where the life
expectancy is shorter
 For women, going through menopause is a
significant aspect of middle age
 Depending on the culture, can be a time of stress or
crisis, or it can be a time of relief
 May or may not lead to role changes
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Adulthood
 The Senior Years
 The elderly are variably recognized, defined,
and valued in different cultures
 In many cultures, elders are highly revered and their
life experiences are valued as the greatest wisdom
 Often have a higher status when they continue to live with
their families
 More prevalent in nonindustrial societies
 Samoa – status increases as responsibilities lighten,
highly valued by fellow villagers, lax restrictions, party
time!!
 In other cultures, the elderly are perceived as
becoming burdens to their families and to society
 Elderly are often relegated to retirement homes or nursing
homes
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 More prevalent in industrial societies
Death
 In many industrialized societies such as the U.S.
 A large resistance to death
 High dependence on medical technology
 Try to avoid it often at high financial and psychological
costs

In many other cultures
 Is a greater acceptance of death, but still have
various rules and burial practices that must be
followed if living relatives are to avert psychological
suffering

Grief
 Outward expression varies greatly from huge displays
of ritualized mourning (Trobriand Islands) to no
outside display of crying or grief (Bali, Indonesia)
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Personality in Adulthood
Parenthood
Middle age
Old age
• Role of
mother and
father shaped
by culture
• Mid-life crisis
and menopause:
a Western
obsession?
• Nonindustrial
cultures respect
the elderly more
• Responsibility
for childcare
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Group Personality
 Trying to determine the personality or
“typical characteristics” of a large group,
often a nation
 Tries to determine the “average” personality of
a member of a particular society
 “National character” studies
 Popular in anthropology during the 1930’s and
1940’s
 Tries to discover personality traits shared by the
majority of the people of modern nation states
 Problems?
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Group Personality
 Problems?
 Who is average?
 Individual variations – not everyone will behave this
way
 There are a range of behaviors within each culture
 Yanomamo value fierceness and aggressiveness, but…
 Will there by shy, non-aggressive Yanomamo individuals? Yes!
 Stereotyping
 What about microcultures?
 Differences in the way men and women act
 Class differences – French farmer may have less in common
with a French lawyer than he does with a German farmer
 Ethnic differences within a nation
 Sample size representative of a large group
 Subjective
 Japanese society in 1940’s – national character was believed
to be militaristic – reflection of wartime hostility rather than
scientific objectivity
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Group Personality

Modal personality of a group


The body of personality traits that occur with
the highest frequency in a culturally
bounded population
Is a statistical concept rather than the
personality of an average person in a
particular society
1. So instead of typifying and generalizing the
average American as materialistic, recognize the
variation that exists from non-materialistic to
materialistic
2. Collect a variety of data
3. Maybe can make a statement that based on this
data we find that 70% of the Americans sampled
are materialistic, 30% are non-materialistic
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Group Personality

Core values of a group

The values promoted by a particular culture

e.g. North Americans – value rugged
individualism



Fits well with our mode of production and family life
e.g. China – value kin ties, cooperation, and
mutual dependence
Allows for the fact that not all personalities
will conform to cultural ideals
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The BIG Questions Revisited
 How are modes of reproduction related
to modes of production?
 How does culture shape fertility in
different contexts?
 How does culture shape personality and
human development over the life cycle?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008