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Question
Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro's career illustrates the usefulness of anthropology in addressing contemporary world problems. Her role as a mother to Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, and his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, also pays tribute to anthropology's relevance in the world today. How so? More generally, how do you think anthropology might be of value not just to political leaders but to all of us as active members in our society, when understanding and solving shared pressing challenges such as environmental degradation, poverty, and violence?
Answer
Answers will vary
Related questions
Q:
In the early 20th century, the anthropologist Franz Boas described changes in skull form among the children of Europeans who had emigrated to North America. He found that the reason for these changes could not be explained by genetics. His findings underscore the fact that
A. phenotypic similarities and differences don't necessarily have a genetic basis.
B. even though the environment influences the phenotype, genetics is a more powerful determinant of racial differences.
C. diet affects which genes are turned off and which get turned on, resulting in a particular phenotypic characteristic.
D. describing changes in skull form is the most accurate way to study the impact of migration on traveling populations.
E. observing changes over one generation is not enough to make conclusions about changes in the genotype and phenotype.
Q:
What term refers to an organism's evident traits, or its "manifest biology?"
A. manifest destiny
B. genotype
C. biological circumscription
D. phenotype
E. hereditary inequality
Q:
An anthropological understanding of ethnicity and race requires exploring how people and institutions define, negotiate, and even challenge their identities in society. One way that anthropologistsand social scientists in generaldo this is by studying status, which refers to
A. a mutually exclusive social identity that is set by others and has little to do with the actions of an individual.
B. any position, no matter what its prestige, that someone occupies in society.
C. one's biologically determined identity within a hierarchical society.
D. one's socially negotiated identity, which always changes throughout a person's lifetime.
E. an identity determined by the state through census practices.
Q:
Which of the following statements about chimpanzee call systems is NOT true?
A. They consist of a limited number of sounds.
B. Like language, they include displacement and cultural transmission.
C. They consist of sounds that vary in intensity and duration.
D. Calls cannot be combined when multiple stimuli are present.
E. They are stimuli dependent.
Q:
A key feature of language that helps explain anthropologists' continued interest in studying it is that it
A. enables us to compare human and nonhuman primate linguistic grammars.
B. tells us a lot about the present, although nothing about the past.
C. is always changing.
D. helps them distinguish between the more and less evolved human races.
E. rarely changes, so it provides a good window into linguistic uses of the past.
Q:
According to some estimates, the world's linguistic diversity has been cut in half in the past 500 years, and half the remaining languages are predicted to disappear during this century. Why does this matter? Isn't this just a natural result of globalization, something we should actually celebrate because it makes communication among diverse groups much easier?
Q:
Historical linguists use linguistic similarities and differences in the world today to study long-term changes in language.
Q:
In all languages, the same honorifics have the same meaning, regardless of context.
Q:
According to the principle of linguistic relativity, all languages and dialects are equally effective as systems of communication.
Q:
Phonology is the study of speech sounds.
Q:
________ refers to the specialized set of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups.
A. Syntactical vocabulary
B. Spatial vocabulary
C. Focal vocabulary
D. Vernacular vocabulary
E. Temporal vocabulary
Q:
Sapir and Whorf argued that the grammatical categories of different languages lead their speakers to think about things in particular ways. However, studies on the differences between female and male Americans with regard to the color terms they use suggest that
A. changes in the U.S. economy, society, and culture have had no impact on the use of color terms, or on any other terms for that matter.
B. contrary to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it might be more reasonable to say that changes in culture produce changes in language and thought, rather than the reverse.
C. in support of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, different languages produce different ways of thinking.
D. women and men are equally sensitive to the marketing tactics of the cosmetic industry.
E. women spend more money on status goods than do men.
Q:
Linguistic anthropologists also are interested in investigating the structure of language and how it varies across time and space. What is the study of the forms in which sounds combine to form words?
A. phonology
B. syntax
C. morphology
D. lexicon
E. grammar
Q:
Recent research on the origins of language suggests that a key mutation might have something to do with it. Comparing chimp and human genomes, it appears that
A. chimps lack the tongue-rolling gene that all humans have, which might explain why they struggle to achieve clear speech.
B. chimps share with humans all the genetic propensities for language but lack the language-activation mutation.
C. a speech-friendly mutation occurred among Neandertals in Europe and spread to other human populations through gene flow.
D. the speech-friendly form of FOXP2 took hold in humans some 150,000 years ago, thus conferring selective advantages (linguistic and cultural abilities) that allowed those who had it to spread it, at the expense of those who did not.
E. the speech mutation occurred even before the hominin line split from the rest of the hominids.
Q:
Contrast ritual behavior with ordinary behavior. Give examples of religious and secular rituals. What are the main differences between such kinds of rituals?
Q:
How do you explain the universality of religion?
Q:
Like Catholicism, Pentecostalism is egalitarian, and adherents need no special education to preach or run a church.
Q:
In almost all cases of marriage in nonindustrial societies, some kind of preexisting social relationship between any two individuals helps determine whether they may marry.
Q:
With polyandry, a woman takes more than one husband at one time.
Q:
Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, with the number of wives a man has serving as an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.
Q:
The biological degeneration explanation for the incest taboo has won over supporters because of universal concerns about biology.
Q:
Which of the following best defines polygyny?
A. the type of marriage in which there is more than one husband
B. the custom whereby a wife marries the brother of her dead husband
C. the type of marriage involving only two spouses
D. the custom whereby a widower marries the sister of his dead wife
E. the type of marriage in which there is more than one wife
Q:
How do the rules of endogamy function in society?
A. They prove that the incest taboo is not the cultural universal it was once thought to be.
B. They encourage the extension of affinal bonds to an ever-widening circle of people.
C. They tend to maintain social distinctions between groups.
D. They expand the gene pool.
E. They extend kin ties across classes.
Q:
What term refers to the culturally sanctioned practice of marrying someone within a group to which one belongs?
A. incest
B. exogamy
C. hypogamy
D. endogamy
E. endosperm
Q:
The incest taboo is almost culturally universal, but
A. not all cultures have one.
B. not all cultures define incest the same way.
C. not all cultures know about the consequences of incest.
D. some cultures have replaced it with the levirate.
E. some cultures practice gerontology anyway.
Q:
What term refers to one of two descent groups in a given population?
A. levirate
B. sororate
C. moiety
D. patriline
E. matriline
Q:
Pantribal sodalities function to integrate the community by providing a series of important nonkin relationships.
Q:
Most band and tribal societies in the world today are completely cut off from the rest of the world.
Q:
In an ethnographic field study of political systems in northern Mozambique, Nicholas Kottak found that avoiding shame can be an effective control against breaking social norms. This example of how shame can be a powerful social sanction
A. is unique among ethnographic cases illustrating the variety of sociopolitical systems that exist in the world today.
B. is often a key component of the formal processes of social control.
C. is evidence that shame is a cultural universal.
D. is an indication that women tend to suffer from the consequences of shame more than men do.
E. joins the work of many other anthropologists that cite the importance of informal processes of social control, including gossip and stigma.
Q:
In the pre-Civil War southern United States, gatherings of five or more slaves were forbidden unless a White person was present, because
A. resistance was most likely to be expressed openly when Black slaves were provoked by the presence of White persons.
B. resistance is most likely to be expressed openly when people are allowed to assemble.
C. White persons were curious about the use of the story of Moses that was popular among slaves at the time.
D. some Whites were eager to join the Black slaves in their plans, some successful, in establishing free communities in isolated areas.
E. these Whites were actually covert anthropologists eager to study social relations during these politically difficult times.