Test Bank for Essentials of Cultural Anthropology 3rd Edition by Bailey 2
CULTURE
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading Chapter 2, the student should be
... [Show More] able to:
1. Describe the anthropological meaning of culture and its complexities.
2. Explain why it is usually mistaken to equate “culture” with “nation” or “society.”
3. Discuss the nonobvious components of cultural knowledge and their importance.
4. Evaluate the importance of culture to human life.
KEY TERMS
culture (22)
cultural identity (23)
subculture (23)
enculturation (socialization) (24)
patterns of behavior (26)
role (27)
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The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft
norm (27)
values (28)
symbol (30)
cultural construction (31)
world view (34)
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Anthropologists use the concept of culture to understand the diversity of human experience.
Culture is the shared, socially learned knowledge and patterns of behavior that are unique to a
group of people. Culture is not only essential for humanity, but it is also the key to our successful
adaptation in a wide variety of environments.
Though definitions vary widely, anthropologists generally agree on certain characteristics of
culture: it is learned, shared, has a profound impact on the group of people who share it, and is
central to understanding the different ways in which groups of people act, think, and feel. In a
narrow sense, culture can be defined as a mental phenomenon; material artifacts and behaviors,
for example, are products of culture in this sense. Broadly defined, culture refers to the way of
life of a given group of people and explains the distinctiveness of the group. Culture is shared by
definition, and always socially learned. Biological differences do not explain cultural differences;
they are independent of each other. Culture is passed from one generation to the next, and transmitted from place to place at any given time.
Attitudes, beliefs, assumptions about the world and other socially learned information that is
stored in the mind, is called cultural knowledge. The five components of cultural knowledge are:
norms, values, symbols, constructions of reality (including the natural and social worlds), and
world views through which reality is interpreted. Culture knowledge is learned through enculturation. It is necessary for human existence because it enables us to adapt to our environments and
provides the basis for human life, as well as shaping our view of reality.
LECTURE OUTLINE
CULTURE
I. A Definition of Culture
a. Culture is both a concept and a word.
b. The modern idea of culture developed in the nineteenth century.
c. All human groups possess culture to the same degree.
d. Anthropological definitions of culture share certain features.
i. Culture is learned from other people while growing up in a particular society or group.
ii. Culture is widely shared by the members of that society or group.
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iii. Culture profoundly affects the thoughts, actions, and feelings of people.
iv. Culture in large part accounts for differences in how people act, think, and
feel.
e. Narrow concepts of culture see it as an ideational or mental phenomenon.
f. Broad concepts of culture see it as the whole way of life of a group of people.
g. Even within a culture, behavior varies between individuals.
h. Culture is collective.
i. Common cultural identities do not necessarily equate to sameness.
ii. Colonialism has produced countries filled with many cultural groups who
share a common cultural identity in addition to identifying other cultural
affiliations.
iii. Subcultures refer to nations whose citizens and residents are culturally diverse.
i. Culture is socially learned.
j. Enculturation is the process by which infants and children socially learn the culture of those around them.
k. Culture is not transmitted through genetics or by biological reproduction.
l. Any human infant is perfectly capable of learning culture of any human group or
biological population.
i. The same is true of language acquisition.
ii. Cultural and biological differences are largely independent.
m. Culture is socially learned through observation, imitation, communication, and inference.
i. Every people and nation has adopted things from others.
II. Cultural knowledge
a. Patterns of behavior promote commonality.
i. Roles are associated with privileges and obligations.
ii. Norms are associated with shared ideas and expectations of how people
ought to act in a given situation.
b. Cultural Values
c. These are people’s beliefs about the goals or ways of living that are deemed desirable. [Show Less]