Full Test Bank | Anthropology Asking Questions About – Ch.1

Chapter 1: Anthropology: Asking Questions About Humanity

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 01

1) The subfield of anthropology that studies human evolution, including human genetics and human nutrition, is called

Feedback: Biological anthropology (also called physical anthropology) focuses on the biological aspects of the human species, past and present, along with those of our closest relatives, the non-human primates (apes, monkeys, and related species).
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. biological anthropology.

b. linguistic anthropology.

c. cultural anthropology.

d. archaeology.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 02

2) The subfield of anthropology that studies language use is called

Feedback: Linguistic anthropology studies how people communicate with one another through language, and how language use shapes group membership and identity. Linguistic anthropologists also look at how language helps people organize their cultural beliefs and ideologies.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. biological anthropology.

b. linguistic anthropology.

c. cultural anthropology.

d. archaeology.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 03

3) The subfield of anthropology that studies the material remains of past cultures is called

Feedback: Archaeology studies past cultures, by excavating sites where people lived, worked, farmed, or conducted some other activity. Some archaeologists study prehistory (life before writ-ten records), trying to understand how people lived before they had domesticated plants and animals, or trying to reconstruct the patterns of trade or warfare between ancient settlements.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. biological anthropology.

b. linguistic anthropology.

c. cultural anthropology.

d. archaeology.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 04

4) The subfield of anthropology that studies human diversity, beliefs, and practices is called

Feedback: Cultural anthropology focuses on the social lives of living communities. Until the 1970s, most cultural anthropologists conducted research in non-Western communities, spending a year or two observing social life.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. biological anthropology.

b. linguistic anthropology.

c. cultural anthropology.

d. archaeology.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 05

5) The advent of systemic comparisons through careful observation of people occurred during

Feedback: The Enlightenment or Age of Reason, which began in the early 1700s with the rise of modern science, demonstrated that careful observation and analysis could lead to understanding the natural world.
Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. the Industrial Revolution.

b. the Renaissance.

c. the Enlightenment.

d. the Dark Ages.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 06

6) When did anthropology emerge as an academic discipline?

Feedback: During the nineteenth century, anthropology emerged in Europe and North America as an academic discipline devoted to the systematic observation and analysis of human variation. It was made possible once intellectuals and scholars had developed rigorous ways of comparing different species and people with different cultures. The Enlightenment or Age of Reason, which began in the early 1700s with the rise of modern science, demonstrated that careful observation and analysis could lead to understanding the natural world.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. 400 BCE

b. 1800s

c. 1900s

d. 1500s

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 07

7) In anthropology, what is the term that refers to taken-for-granted notions, rules, moralities, and behaviors within a social group that feel natural and suggest the way things should be.

Feedback: Another of anthropology’s major contributions to knowledge has been to describe and explain human diversity, the sheer variety of ways of being human around the world.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. Diversity

b. Holism

c. Culture

d. Colonialism

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 08

8) The moral and intellectual principle that one should withhold judgment about seemingly strange or exotic beliefs and practices is called

Feedback: Cultural relativism is the moral and intellectual principle that one should seek to understand cultures on their own terms and withhold judgment about seemingly strange or exotic beliefs and practices.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. diversity.

b. cultural relativism.

c. ethnocentrism.

d. a waste of time.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 09

9) Holism

Feedback: In bringing together the study of human biology, prehistory, language, and social life under one disciplinary roof, anthropology offers powerful conceptual tools for understanding the entire context of human experience. The effort to synthesize these distinct approaches and findings into a single comprehensive explanation is called holism.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. synthesizes the entirety of the human experience.

b. is part of the scientific method.

c. is a universal truth.

d. counts, measures, and constructs statistical models.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 10

10) The thinker who developed evolutionary theory in the nineteenth century was

Feedback: Evolution refers to the adaptive changes organisms make across generations. English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) developed a theory of how different species of plants and animals had evolved from earlier forms. The key mechanism of his evolutionary theory was what he called “natural selection,” a process through which certain inheritable traits are passed along to offspring because they are better suited to the environment. Thus, in Darwin’s view, in subtle ways nature was sorting out, or selecting, the forms best adapted for their environment.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. Karl Marx.

b. Max Weber.

c. Emile Durkheim.

d. Charles Darwin.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 11

11) The historical practice of more powerful countries claiming possession of less powerful ones is called _______ and was a driving force in anthropology.

Feedback: Colonialism is the historical practice of more powerful countries claiming possession of less powerful ones.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. Globalization

b. Colonialism

c. Ethnographic fieldwork

d. Evolutionism

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 12

12) During colonialism, the perception of non-Western peoples as primitive or savage is referred to as the process of

Feedback: Advocates of colonialism justified their actions—both philosophically and morally—through the othering of non-Western peoples, a process of defining colonized peoples as different from, and subordinate to, Europeans in terms of their social, moral, and physical norms. Early anthropologists contributed to othering through the creation of intellectual labelling and classification schemes that were sometimes little more than negative stereotypes. At the same time, early anthropologists were developing new social scientific methods of studying non-Western societies, primarily to inform colonial officials how to govern and control such radically different peoples.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. evolution.

b. salvaging.

c. enculturation.

d. othering.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 13

13) Individuals with an undergraduate or graduate background in anthropology are prepared to be ________, because they recognize that even in the most seemingly chaotic situation, there are social, historical, institutional, natural, and cultural patterns at work, and they are deft at identifying and understanding those patterns.

Feedback: Anthropologists recognize that even in the most seemingly chaotic situation, there are social, historical, institutional, natural, and cultural patterns at work, and they are deft at identifying and understanding those patterns.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Put Their Knowledge to Work in the World?

a. Pattern-seekers

b. Critical thinkers

c. Relationship builders

d. Adapters

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 14

14) What field of study examines moral questions of right and wrong and standards of appropriate behavior?

Feedback: Issues of ethics—moral questions about right and wrong and standards of appropriate behavior—are at the heart of anthropology.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. Anthropology

b. Ethics

c. Political science

d. Sociology

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 15

15) ___________ is an approach in anthropology that directly addresses issues of social justice, such as poor health and political disempowerment.

Feedback: Action anthropology (sometimes also known as “advocacy anthropology”) is an approach developed in the 1940s and 1950s by anthropologist Sol Tax (1907–1995) that directly addresses issues of social injustice.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. Radical social science

b. Action anthropology

c. Practicing archaeology

d. Cultural anthropology

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 16

16) The primary ethical responsibility of anthropologists is to

Feedback: Anthropologists have a responsibility to the public, including the obligation to disseminate the findings of their research—even when certain findings might lower public opinion about a group of people. Anthropologists also have responsibilities to the sponsors who fund their research and to the discipline itself, including its standards of integrity and openness. And anthropologists bear some level of responsibility for the effects of their research on the communities they have studied.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. the people or species they study.

b. the agency that funds the research.

c. the institution in which they work.

d. the government of the country they work in.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 17

17) Assuming your culture's way of doing things is the best is called

Feedback: Ethnocentrism is the assumption that one’s own way of doing things is correct, and that other people’s practices or views are wrong or ignorant.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. cultural relativism.

b. patriotism.

c. natural selection.

d. ethnocentrism.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 18

18) The scientific method begins with

Feedback: Anthropology often uses the scientific method, the most basic pattern of scientific research. The scientific method is quite simple. It starts with the observation of a fact, a verifiable truth. Next follows the construction of a hypothesis, which is a testable explanation for the fact. Then that hypothesis is tested with experiments, further observations, or measurements. If the data (the in-formation the tests produce) show that the hypothesis is wrong, the scientist develops a new hypothesis and then tests it. If the new tests and the data they produce seem to support the hypothesis, the scientist writes up a description of what he or she did and found and shares it with other scientists. Other scientists then attempt to reproduce those tests or devise new ones, with a goal of disproving the hypothesis.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. a hypothesis.

b. the observation of a fact.

c. an experiment.

d. detailed measurements.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 19

19) Diversity defined anthropologically

Feedback: Another of anthropology’s major contributions to knowledge has been to describe and explain human diversity, the sheer variety of ways of being human around the world.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. is the same as difference.

b. does not include how people are similar.

c. focuses on multiplicity and variety.

d. is a term that is no longer used.

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 20

20) Anthropology is the study of human beings, their biology, their prehistory and histories, and their changing languages, cultures, and social institutions.

Feedback: This is the definition of anthropology used throughout this textbook.
Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 21

21) A key concern in the 1850s that shaped the discipline of anthropology was the emergence of a new scientific theory called “evolution.”

Feedback: A key influence on the development of anthropology was the rise of evolutionary theory to explain biological variation between and within species. Evolution refers to the adaptive changes organisms make across generations. English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) developed a theory of how different species of plants and animals had evolved from earlier forms. The key mechanism of his evolutionary theory was what he called “natural selection,” a process through which certain inheritable traits are passed along to offspring because they are better suit-ed to the environment. Thus, in Darwin’s view, in subtle ways nature was sorting out, or selecting, the forms best adapted for their environment.
Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 22

22) Historical archaeologists excavate sites where written historical documentation exists that provides an accurate description of the way the people actually lived.

Feedback: Another branch of archaeology is historical archaeology, in which archaeologists excavate sites where written historical documentation about the sites also exists. The goal is to find physical evidence in the ground that will supplement or verify what we know about a community or society based on written records.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 23

23) Diversity, defined anthropologically, refers to both multiplicity and variety, which is not the same thing as “difference.”

Feedback: Another of anthropology’s major contributions to knowledge has been to describe and explain human diversity, the sheer variety of ways of being human around the world.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 24

24) Anthropologists have always approached a problem by specializing in one of the four subfields.

Feedback: In bringing together the study of human biology, prehistory, language, and social life under one disciplinary roof, anthropology offers powerful conceptual tools for understanding the entire context of human experience. The effort to synthesize these distinct approaches and findings into a single comprehensive explanation is called holism. It is American anthropology that has strived to be the most holistic. This was a legacy of German-born Franz Boas, long considered the founder of American anthropology, through his work in the American Anthropological Association and at Columbia University in the early twentieth century. His student Alfred Kroeber once described four-field anthropology as a “sacred bundle.”
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 25

25) Contemporary cultural anthropologists rank societies along an evolutionary scale from “primitive” to “advanced” to categorize human diversity.

Feedback: The notion of evolution allowed early anthropologists to rank societies along an evolutionary scale, ranging from more “primitive” forms of society with simpler technologies to more “advanced” forms of society that used more complex tools. Anthropologists today challenge such models of cultural evolution because this model does not fit the observed facts, but these early models motivated anthropologists to collect data from the so-called primitive societies before industrialization caused them to change or die out.
Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 26

26) What prompted intellectuals to start systematically explaining the differences among people?

Feedback: The Industrial Revolution is an important component of the beginning of anthropology; however, systemic comparisons of people began earlier.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. The writings of early explorers

b. The Enlightenment

c. The Industrial Revolution

d. World War II

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 27

27) What process involves shifting from an agricultural economy to a factory-based one?

Feedback: Industrialization is marked by a shift from humans farming to working in factories.
Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. Modernization

b. Industrialization

c. Neoliberalization

d. Globalization

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 28

28) The process by which inheritable traits are passed along to offspring because they are better suited to the environment is referred to as

Feedback: The key mechanism of Darwin’s evolutionary theory was what he called “natural selection,” a process through which certain inheritable traits are passed along to offspring because they are better suit-ed to the environment. Thus, in Darwin’s view, in subtle ways nature was sorting out, or selecting, the forms best adapted for their environment.
Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. evolution.

b. natural selection.

c. degeneration.

d. genetic mutation.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 29

29) Western colonial powers understood the different customs and cultures of the people they colonized as

Feedback: Advocates of colonialism justified their actions—both philosophically and morally—through the othering of non-Western peoples, a process of defining colonized peoples as different from, and subordinate to, Europeans in terms of their social, moral, and physical norms. Early anthropologists contributed to othering through the creation of intellectual labelling and classification schemes that were sometimes little more than negative stereotypes. At the same time, early anthropologists were developing new social scientific methods of studying non-Western societies, primarily to inform colonial officials how to govern and control such radically different peoples.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. proof of their primitive nature.

b. basic human diversity.

c. a positive characteristic.

d. something to be celebrated and reproduced.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 30

30) Which of the following is the most significant aspect of the salvage paradigm?

Feedback: Most Europeans and Americans expected their colonial subjects to die out, leading to the urgent collection of information about tribal societies before it was too late. Well into the 1920s, anthropologists pursued an approach known as the salvage paradigm, which held that it was important to observe indigenous ways of life, interview elders, and assemble collections of objects made and used by indigenous peoples because this knowledge of traditional languages and customs would soon disappear

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

a. Archaeologists study other people's trash by salvaging it.

b. Anthropologists study the natural destruction of societies.

c. Anthropologists need to collect information from societies before they die out.

d. Anthropologists produce paradigms to salvage the dignity of oppressed people.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 31

31) During anthropological fieldwork, cultural anthropologists

Feedback: Cultural anthropology focuses on the social lives of living communities. Until the 1970s, most cultural anthropologists conducted research in non-Western communities, spending a year or two observing social life. We call this kind of research ethnographic fieldwork. These anthropologists learned the local language and studied broad aspects of the community, recording information about people’s economic transactions, religious rituals, political organization, and families, seeking to understand how these distinct domains influenced each other.

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. learn the local language, record people's economic transactions, and study how environmental changes affect agriculture.

b. examine items of material culture and the rise of cities and states.

c. excavate sites where written historical documentation exists in order to understand the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

d. study how language use is shaped by group membership and identify and how language helps people organize their cultural beliefs and ideologies.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 32

32) Linguistic anthropologists study

Feedback: Linguistic anthropology studies how people communicate with one another through language, and how language use shapes group membership and identity. Linguistic anthropologists also look at how language helps people organize their cultural beliefs and ideologies. These anthropologists have traditionally studied the categories that indigenous people use in their own languages, attempting to understand how they classify parts of their social and natural worlds differently from peoples in other societies.

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. people's economic transactions and how environmental changes affect agriculture.

b. the written historical documentation in order to understand the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

c. the quantitative patterns in land use from census data.

d. how our language evolved, how our mouths form words, and how indigenous people classify their social worlds.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 33

33) A key principle of the holistic perspective developed by Franz Boas is

Feedback: In bringing together the study of human biology, prehistory, language, and social life under one disciplinary roof, anthropology offers powerful conceptual tools for understanding the entire context of human experience. The effort to synthesize these distinct approaches and findings into a single comprehensive explanation is called holism.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. understanding the racial diversity of the human species.

b. identifying the holes in people's understanding of their worlds.

c. a goal of synthesizing the entire context of human experience.

d. that people are fundamentally ethnocentric.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 34

34) A key element of the scientific method, which both explains things and guides research, is

Feedback: Anthropology often uses the scientific method, the most basic pattern of scientific research. The scientific method is quite simple. It starts with the observation of a fact, a verifiable truth. Next follows the construction of a hypothesis, which is a testable explanation for the fact. Then that hypothesis is tested with experiments, further observations, or measurements. If the data (the in-formation the tests produce) show that the hypothesis is wrong, the scientist develops a new hypothesis and then tests it. If the new tests and the data they produce seem to support the hypothesis, the scientist writes up a description of what he or she did and found and shares it with other scientists. Other scientists then attempt to reproduce those tests or devise new ones, with a goal of disproving the hypothesis.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. participant observation.

b. theories.

c. universal truths.

d. hypothesis.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 35

35) Techniques that classify features of a phenomenon and count, measure, and construct statistical models are collecting and analyzing

Feedback: Quantitative methodologies classify features of a phenomenon, counting or measuring them, and constructing mathematical and statistical models to explain what is observed.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. qualitative data.

b. historical data.

c. ethnographic data.

d. quantitative data.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 36

36) In a study where an anthropologist is collecting stories, memories, beliefs, jokes, conversations, interviews, and disagreements, he or she is collecting what kind of data?

Feedback: Anthropologists employ qualitative methods, in which the aim is to produce an in-depth and detailed description of social behaviors and beliefs. Qualitative research usually involves interviews with people as well as observations of their activities. Research data come in the form of words, images, or objects. In contrast with quantitative methods, qualitative research does not typically use research instruments like surveys or questionnaires.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. Quantitative

b. Qualitative

c. Archival

d. Ethnocentric

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 37

37) When an anthropologist examines birthing practices in the United States and Mexico, he or she is employing

Feedback: The comparative method allows anthropologists to derive insights from careful comparisons of two or more cultures or societies. The actual “method” is nothing like a precise recipe for re-search, however, but a general approach. This approach holds that any particular detail of human behavior or any particular social condition should not be seen in isolation, but should be considered against the backdrop of the full range of behaviors and conditions in their individual social settings.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. the scientific method.

b. cultural relativism.

c. participant observation.

d. the comparative method.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 38

38) The comparative method

Feedback: The comparative method allows anthropologists to derive insights from careful comparisons of two or more cultures or societies. The actual “method” is nothing like a precise recipe for re-search, however, but a general approach. This approach holds that any particular detail of human behavior or any particular social condition should not be seen in isolation, but should be considered against the backdrop of the full range of behaviors and conditions in their individual social settings.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. is used only by linguistic anthropologists studying two or more languages.

b. suggests that all societies pass through stages, from primitive state to complex civilization.

c. explains the sheer variety of ways of being human around the world.

d. refers to the practice of comparing two or more cultures.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 39

39) What is the category of anthropological work in which the anthropologist not only performs research but also gets involved in the design, implementation, and management of some organization, process, or product?

Feedback: Practical applications are such an important component of anthropology that some anthropologists consider them the “fifth subfield.” These practical applications include those of applied anthropology, anthropological research commissioned to serve an organization’s needs, and those of practicing anthropology, the broadest category of anthropological work, in which the anthropologist not only performs research but also gets involved in the design, implementation, and management of some organization, process, or product.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Put Their Knowledge to Work in the World?

a. Salvage ethnography

b. Comparative anthropology

c. Natural selection

d. Practicing anthropology

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 40

40) An ethical approach to anthropological research emphasizes

Feedback: The primary ethical responsibility of anthropologists is to the people, species, or artifacts they study. Whether it is a pottery shard, a baboon, or a person, anthropologists are expected to side with their subjects.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. a commitment to doing minimal harm.

b. the acceptance of low-risk clandestine research.

c. responsibilities toward the host country and the people being studied.

d. a responsibility for informed consent only when the participants speak the same language as the anthropologist.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 41

41) ___________ is an approach in anthropology that directly addresses issues of social justice, such as poor health and political disempowerment.

Feedback: Action anthropology (sometimes also known as “advocacy anthropology”) is an approach developed in the 1940s and 1950s by anthropologist Sol Tax (1907–1995) that directly addresses issues of social injustice.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. Radical social science

b. Action anthropology

c. Practicing archaeology

d. Cultural anthropology

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 42

42) It is important to be clear about the anthropological work you are doing in any field site; therefore, it is important to get the permission of your subjects by

Feedback: Anthropologists routinely explain to people involved in their research any risks their participation might carry, and they obtain these people’s voluntary and “informed consent” to participate.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. force.

b. any means necessary.

c. informed consent.

d. archival documents.

Type: fill-in-blank

Title: Chapter 01 Question 43

43) Research that involves interviews, observations, images, objects, and words is a study.

Feedback: Anthropologists employ qualitative methods, in which the aim is to produce an in-depth and detailed description of social behaviors and beliefs. Qualitative research usually involves interviews with people as well as observations of their activities. Research data come in the form of words, images, or objects. In contrast with quantitative methods, qualitative research does not typically use research instruments like surveys or questionnaires.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. qualitative

Type: fill-in-blank

Title: Chapter 01 Question 44

44) Some anthropologists believe that the ethical principle of “ ” is not enough, and that anthropologists have a responsible to actively “do good” in a society.

Feedback: Medical, scientific, and social science organizations, including anthropological organizations, published codes of ethics emphasizing the importance of avoiding harm to people and animals who are the subjects of research. “Do no harm” continues to be a bedrock principle in anthropology’s primary code of ethics, the American Anthropological Association’s Principles of Professional Responsibility (see inside front cover).
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. do not harm

Type: fill-in-blank

Title: Chapter 01 Question 45

45) Ethics, defined as , are important to anthropologists.

a. moral questions of right and wrong

Type: fill-in-blank

Title: Chapter 01 Question 46

46) A key feature of the concept is that it refers to the taken-for-granted notions, rules, moralities, and behaviors within a social group that feel natural.

Feedback: In anthropology, the term culture refers to these taken-for-granted notions, rules, moralities, and behaviors within a social group that feel natural and suggest the way things should be.
Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. culture

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 47

47) The scientific method is a research method in pursuit of ultimate truths.

Feedback: Anthropology often uses the scientific method, the most basic pattern of scientific research. The scientific method is quite simple. It starts with the observation of a fact, a verifiable truth. Next follows the construction of a hypothesis, which is a testable explanation for the fact. Then that hypothesis is tested with experiments, further observations, or measurements. If the data (the in-formation the tests produce) show that the hypothesis is wrong, the scientist develops a new hypothesis and then tests it. If the new tests and the data they produce seem to support the hypothesis, the scientist writes up a description of what he or she did and found and shares it with other scientists. Other scientists then attempt to reproduce those tests or devise new ones, with a goal of disproving the hypothesis.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 48

48) There is rarely any guessing involved in the development of theories because they are tested repeatedly.

Feedback: Anthropology often uses the scientific method, the most basic pattern of scientific research. The scientific method is quite simple. It starts with the observation of a fact, a verifiable truth. Next follows the construction of a hypothesis, which is a testable explanation for the fact. Then that hypothesis is tested with experiments, further observations, or measurements. If the data (the in-formation the tests produce) show that the hypothesis is wrong, the scientist develops a new hypothesis and then tests it. If the new tests and the data they produce seem to support the hypothesis, the scientist writes up a description of what he or she did and found and shares it with other scientists. Other scientists then attempt to reproduce those tests or devise new ones, with a goal of disproving the hypothesis.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 49

49) When qualitative methods are employed, the researchers themselves are often used as the research instrument.

Feedback: Anthropologists employ qualitative methods, in which the aim is to produce an in-depth and detailed description of social behaviors and beliefs. Qualitative research usually involves interviews with people as well as observations of their activities. Research data come in the form of words, images, or objects. In contrast with quantitative methods, qualitative research does not typically use research instruments like surveys or questionnaires.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 50

50) Anthropologists like E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Renato Rosaldo do not see cultural anthropology as a science.

Feedback: Anthropology often uses the scientific method, the most basic pattern of scientific research. The scientific method is quite simple. It starts with the observation of a fact, a verifiable truth. Next follows the construction of a hypothesis, which is a testable explanation for the fact. Then that hypothesis is tested with experiments, further observations, or measurements. If the data (the in-formation the tests produce) show that the hypothesis is wrong, the scientist develops a new hypothesis and then tests it. If the new tests and the data they produce seem to support the hypothesis, the scientist writes up a description of what he or she did and found and shares it with other scientists. Other scientists then attempt to reproduce those tests or devise new ones, with a goal of disproving the hypothesis.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 51

51) Anthropologists have effectively put their discipline to work addressing difficult social, health, and educational problems.

Feedback: In spite of the challenges, anthropologists have effectively put their discipline to work addressing difficult social, health, and educational problems, as the following snap-shots demonstrate.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Put Their Knowledge to Work in the World?

a. True

b. False

Type: true-false

Title: Chapter 01 Question 52

52) Anthropologists have a responsibility to the public, including the obligation to disseminate the findings of their research—even when certain findings might lower public opinion about a group of people.

Feedback: Anthropologists have a responsibility to the public, including the obligation to disseminate the findings of their research—even when certain findings might lower public opinion about a group of people. Anthropologists also have responsibilities to the sponsors who fund their research and to the discipline itself, including its standards of integrity and openness. And anthropologists bear some level of responsibility for the effects of their research on the communities they have studied.
Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 53

53) A relativistic perspective on the meanings of Coca-Cola in Tzotzil Maya communities in Chiapas, Mexico, would emphasize that

Feedback: Globalization creates many new opportunities for cultural diversity—differences and similarities—to thrive. An example drawn from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas illustrates this point. In Chiapas, some indigenous people have adapted Coca-Cola for use in their religious and community ceremonies. For many generations, Tzotzil Maya in the com-munity of San Juan Chamula used alcoholic drinks, particularly fermented corn drinks and dis-tilled sugar cane liquor, in their public and religious rites. To create these rites, traditional Mayan religious leaders blended Catholic and indigenous traditions, combining Catholicism’s celebration of saints’ days with the Mayan belief that consuming intoxicating spirits helps individuals access sacred powers.

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

a. they, the Tzotzil, are dominated by globalization.

b. the Maya are becoming a lot more like people from the United States.

c. those meanings are only sensible within a culturally specific set of ideas about religion and spirituality.

d. the Maya love carbonated beverages.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 54

54) An evolutionary perspective would be most likely to explain colonialism as

Feedback: Among early cultural anthropologists, evolutionary models seemed ideal for explaining how different societies had come to be as they were when Europeans encountered them for the first time. The notion of evolution allowed early anthropologists to rank societies along an evolutionary scale, ranging from more “primitive” forms of society with simpler technologies to more “advanced” forms of society that used more complex tools. Anthropologists today challenge such models of cultural evolution because this model does not fit the observed facts, but these early models motivated anthropologists to collect data from the so-called primitive societies before industrialization caused them to change or die out.

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a. the natural abilities of more civilized people to control less civilized people.

b. the role of Enlightenment ideas in explaining cultural difference.

c. that more evolved countries shouldn't get involved in other countries.

d. a useful, holistic response to social problems.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 55

55) A qualitative approach to studying social life in your university would emphasize all of the following except

Feedback: Anthropologists employ qualitative methods, in which the aim is to produce an in-depth and detailed description of social behaviors and beliefs. Qualitative research usually involves interviews with people as well as observations of their activities. Research data come in the form of words, images, or objects. In contrast with quantitative methods, qualitative research does not typically use research instruments like surveys or questionnaires.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. prolonged and intensive participation and observation in the community.

b. the construction of statistical models to explain activities in the community.

c. the use of field notes, recordings, images, and documents to understand life in the community.

d. your own subjective impressions.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 56

56) A quantitative approach to studying the archaeological past would be most interested in

Feedback: Quantitative methodologies classify features of a phenomenon, counting or measuring them, and constructing mathematical and statistical models to explain what is observed.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. the organizing of images, recordings, field notes, and documents about a field site.

b. the personal impressions of the archaeologist him- or herself.

c. the comparison of several distinct field sites.

d. building and testing hypotheses by collecting, classifying, and measuring the remains of past cultures.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 57

57) The application of the comparative method in his research in Papua New Guinea led coauthor Robert Welsch to focus on

Feedback: The research of cultural anthropologist Robert Welsch, this book’s other author, illustrates how anthropologists can use the comparative method. Welsch has conducted extended ethnographic research both in Papua New Guinea and in Indonesia. One of his re-search projects explicitly made use of comparative research strategies to understand the social and religious meanings of masks and carved objects in three societies along the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea. To conduct his comparative study, Welsch studied museum collections holding the masks, pored over published and unpublished accounts of the people who collected the masks, and interviewed older villagers about their traditional practices

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

a. blood samples from representative villagers.

b. published and unpublished accounts of mask collectors who visited different villages.

c. census data concerning household composition.

d. natural resource extraction practices.

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 01 Question 58

58) Describe how a cultural relativist would study the ethical principles of another culture.

Feedback: All human lives are constantly embedded in and shaped by culture. Anthropologists, of course, also carry with them basic assumptions about how the world works and what is right or wrong, which typically become apparent when one is studying a culture that makes completely different assumptions. One possible response to the gap in understanding that comes with being in another culture is ethnocentrism, assuming one’s own way of doing things is correct, while simply dis-missing other people’s practices or views as wrong or ignorant. Such a position would render the attempt to understand other cultures meaningless, and it can lead to bigotry and intolerance. To avoid such negative outcomes, anthropologists have traditionally emphasized cultural relativism, the moral and intellectual principle that one should seek to understand cultures on their own terms and withhold judgment about seemingly strange or exotic beliefs and practices.

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 01 Question 59

59) How could an anthropological perspective on diversity be used to explain social change in your community?

Feedback: Defined anthropologically, diversity refers to multiplicity and variety, which is not the same as mere difference. Within multiplicity and variety, there is both difference and similarity. This idea of diversity-as-multiplicity can shed light not just on racial and ethnic differences but on another important issue of our time, the cultural effects of globalization, which refers to the rapid movement of money, people, and goods across national boundaries. People now drink Co-ca-Cola, wear Levi’s jeans, and watch CNN all over the world, leading many observers to believe that the diversity of human cultures is in decline because more and more people are participating in a global economy. Yet cultural differences do not just disappear. In fact, globalization creates many new opportunities for cultural diversity—differences and similarities—to thrive.

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 01 Question 60

60) What role do you think the scientific method plays in the application of anthropology to solving social problems?

Feedback: Anthropology often uses the scientific method, the most basic pattern of scientific research. The scientific method is quite simple. It starts with the observation of a fact, a verifiable truth. Next follows the construction of a hypothesis, which is a testable explanation for the fact. Then that hypothesis is tested with experiments, further observations, or measurements. If the data (the in-formation the tests produce) show that the hypothesis is wrong, the scientist develops a new hypothesis and then tests it. If the new tests and the data they produce seem to support the hypothesis, the scientist writes up a description of what he or she did and found and shares it with other scientists. Other scientists then attempt to reproduce those tests or devise new ones, with a goal of disproving the hypothesis.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 61

61) How would you use anthropology's holistic perspective to understand the effects of low-fat diets in American lives?

Feedback: In bringing together the study of human biology, prehistory, language, and social life under one disciplinary roof, anthropology offers powerful conceptual tools for understanding the entire context of human experience. The effort to synthesize these distinct approaches and findings into a single comprehensive explanation is called holism. It is American anthropology that has strived to be the most holistic. This was a legacy of German-born Franz Boas, long considered the founder of American anthropology, through his work in the American Anthropological Association and at Columbia University in the early twentieth century. His student Alfred Kroeber once described four-field anthropology as a “sacred bundle.”

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 62

62) Could you apply the primary ethical principles of anthropology to another academic discipline? Why or why not?

Feedback: Issues of ethics—moral questions about right and wrong and standards of appropriate behavior—are at the heart of anthropology, in two senses. First, anthropologists learn about how and why people in other cultures think and act as they do by researching their moral standards. Anthropologists often find these things out in the process of adjusting themselves to a culture’s rules of ethical behavior. Second, doing anthropology itself involves ethical relationships between researchers and others, raising many important and complex issues about the ethical conduct of anthropo-logical research and practice. Ethics in anthropology—the moral principles that guide anthropo-logical conduct—are not just a list of dos and don’ts. Nor are they simply cautionary tales of re-search gone awry. Ethics are organically connected to what it means to be a good anthropologist

Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 63

63) What is a common thread or theme that runs through all of the subfields of anthropology?

Feedback: One thing that keeps the subfields together is a shared history. In the early twentieth century, anthropology became organized into the four subfields we know today, from a shared evolutionary perspective. Archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, especially in North America, generally see themselves as asking similar kinds of questions about human cultures. The major difference is that cultural anthropologists can observe cultures as they are lived, while archaeologists can only reconstruct these cultures from what they have left behind. Another rea-son for the persistence of the four-field approach is that anthropologists share certain fundamental approaches and concepts, which they agree are important for making sense of humanity’s complexity. These include culture, cultural relativism, diversity, change, and holism.

Page reference: What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 64

64) What were the main concerns that emerged in the 1850s, and how did they shape professional anthropology?

Feedback: Three key concerns began to emerge by the 1850s that would shape professional anthropology. These were (1) the disruptions of industrialization in Europe and America, (2) the rise of evolutionary theories, and (3) the growing importance of Europe’s far-flung colonies with large indigenous populations whose land, mineral wealth, and labor Europeans and Americans wanted to control.

Page reference: How Did Anthropology Begin?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 01 Question 65

65) Why do you think anthropologists are so concerned with the ethics of research?

Feedback: Issues of ethics—moral questions about right and wrong and standards of appropriate behavior—are at the heart of anthropology, in two senses. First, anthropologists learn about how and why people in other cultures think and act as they do by researching their moral standards. Anthropologists often find these things out in the process of adjusting themselves to a culture’s rules of ethical behavior. Second, doing anthropology itself involves ethical relationships between researchers and others, raising many important and complex issues about the ethical conduct of anthropo-logical research and practice. Ethics in anthropology—the moral principles that guide anthropo-logical conduct—are not just a list of dos and don’ts. Nor are they simply cautionary tales of re-search gone awry. Ethics are organically connected to what it means to be a good anthropologist

Page reference: What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?