Ch. 6

Question 1

Define: Social Identity

Answer 1

the view that people have of their own and others’ position in society. These learned personal and social affiliations may include gender, sexuality, race, class, nationality, and ethnicity. Individuals seek confirmation from others that they occupy the positions on the social landscape that they claim to occupy

Question 2

Define: Enculturation

Answer 2

the process through which individuals learn an identity. It can encompass parental socialization, the influence of peers, the mass media, government and other forces

Question 3

Define: Imagined Community

Answer 3

a term coined by Benedict Anderson in 1983; it refers to the fact that even in the absence of face-to-face interactions, a sense of community is culturally constructed by forces such as the mass media

Question 4

Define: Nature vs. Nurture

Answer 4

a phrase, coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1874, that references a long-standing scholarly debate concerning whether or not human behaviours and identities are the result of nature (biological) or nurture (learned behaviours)

Question 5

Define: Egocentric

Answer 5

a view of the self that defines each person as a replica of all humanity, as the location of motivations and drives, and as capable of acting independently from others

Question 6

Define: Sociocentric

Answer 6

a context-dependant view of self. The self exists as an entity only within the concrete situations or roles occupied by the person

Question 7

Define: Rites of Passage

Answer 7

the term coined in 1908 by Arnold van Gennep to refer to the category of rituals that accompany changes in status, such as the transition from boyhood to manhood, living to dead or student to graduate

Question 8

Define: Principle of Reciprocity

Answer 8

according to Marcel Mauss, gift giving involves reciprocity. The idea is that the exchange of gifts creates a feeling of obligation, in that the gift must be repaid

Question 9

Define: Kula Ring

Answer 9

a system of inter-island gift exchange documented by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands. It involves the exchange of shell necklaces and armbands. According to Malinowski, the kula ring serves, among other things, to create alliances and social ties among individuals living on different islands

Question 10

Define: Potlach

Answer 10

a celebration, usually involving elaborate feasting and the redistribution of gifts, found among may indigenous Northwest Coast groups, such as the Tsimshian. The potlatch is a means of creating a new identity or of reinforcing social status within a group

Question 11

Define: Commodities

Answer 11

Traditionally, commodities are items that involve a transfer of value and a counter-transfer: A sells something to B, and the transaction is finished. As is typical of capitalist market-exchange systems, a longstanding personal relationship between buyer and seller is not established

Question 12

Define: Indigenous Peoples

Answer 12

groups of people whose ancestors predate the arrival of European or other forms of colonialism, who share a culture and/or way of life that they often identify as distinct from “mainstream” society, and who often feel that they have a right to self-government