Chapter 2: The Culture Concept

Question 1

Culture

Answer 1

• a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared
• together they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways

Question 2

Culture and Human Evolution

Answer 2

1. First came the foot
2. Brain development led to bipedalism, neoteny, cooperation and sharing, complex social organization, and language and communication

Question 3

The Triune Brain

Answer 3

• neo-cortex
• limbic system
• r-complex

Question 4

New Cortex

Answer 4

• the “smart brain”
• stores all higher-order conscious activity such as language, abstract thought, imagination, and creativity
• stores biographical and automatic memories such as walking and talking

Question 5

Limbic System

Answer 5

• the “emotional brain”
• the reactive part of us that initiates the “fight or flight” response to danger

Question 6

Reptilian Complex

Answer 6

• the primitive brain
• responsible for the most basic survival functions, such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature, and orientation in space

Question 7

Enculturation and Child Rearing

Answer 7

1. Prolonged infant dependency period in Homo sapiens
2. Increased parental investment required
3. Increased two-way learning capacity is required of human offspring (pedagogy)

Question 8

How Culture is Learned

Answer 8

• informal
• formal
• technical

Question 9

3 Domains of Culture

Answer 9

• material
• cognitive
• behavioural

Question 10

Culture is based on symbols

Answer 10

includes symbol systems, language, discourse

Question 11

Culture is Integrated

Answer 11

1. Systematicity
2. Strain to consistency
3. Tendency for conservation of adaptations

Question 12

The Kapauku Papuans of West
New Guinea

Answer 12

1. Endemic warfare
2. Political influence
3. Patrilineality
4. Polygyny
5. Sweet potato horticulture
6. Pig husbandry

Question 13

Kuru in South Foré (Papua New Guinea)

Answer 13

• aka mad cow disease, pathogenic (bacteria that can cause diseases)
• people believed that it was caused by sorcery but it was through endocannibalism
• people thought the soul was in the brain but it was only kuru
• women ate brains, men ate other body parts
• colonial gov: The great pacification of New Guinea
• Christianity played a ideological role
• Discovered by anthropologists in the 1950s
• Stanley Prusiner made the biological structure

Question 14

Endocannibalism

Answer 14

• cannibalism of members of one’s own family or tribe
• a funerary rite of passage
• changing gender roles for men

Question 15

The Other

Answer 15

describe people whose customs, beliefs, or behaviors are “different” from one’s own

Question 16

Armchair Anthropology

Answer 16

an early and discredited method of anthropological research that did not involve direct contact with the people studied

Question 17

Cultural Determinism

Answer 17

the idea that behavioural differences are a result of cultural, not racial or genetic causes

Question 18

Cultural Evolutionism

Answer 18

a discredited theory popular in nineteenth century anthropology suggesting that societies evolved through stages from simple to advanced

Question 19

Functionalism

Answer 19

emphasized the way that parts of a society work together to support the functioning of the whole

Question 20

Going Native

Answer 20

becoming fully integrated into another cultural group

Question 21

Kinship

Answer 21

blood ties, common ancestry, and social relationships that form families within human groups

Question 22

Structural-Functionalism

Answer 22

focuses on the ways in which the customs or social institutions in a culture contribute to the organization of society and the maintenance of social order