Exam 15: Culture

Lumsden and Wilson refer to the patterns of culture that are transmitted from one person to another as _____; these can be specific tools, customs, foods, and so forth, and like genes, they can be analyzed in terms of whether they increase the inclusive fitness of those humans that acquire them.

One example of cultural transmission in chimpanzees is the fashioning of tools from twigs, which they use to

Northern Europeans have a gene that allows them to continue digesting milk products after the traditional time of weaning; a person with such a gene would have had an advantage because dairy products are a high quality food source and, in probably less than _____ years, that advantage would have enabled the gene to be passed on to almost all of the European population.

Culture can produce durable changes in human behavior, which in turn can influence evolutionary changes. Therefore, Richerson and Boyd (2005) suggest that genes and culture

Discuss the seven characteristics of culture as determined by Flinn (2005).

The debate is not about whether a process is learned or evolved but how each process plays a role. The evolutionary perspective seeks an approach that describes the _____ of cultural experience and psychological predispositions. Thus, the critical question is what mechanisms direct, focus, and allow for cultural learning to take place.

The term _____ refers to those components of culture, such as language, attachment, kin relations, and so forth, that are universal characteristics of human beings.

There is a particular short allele of the 5-HTT gene that is associated with being prone to _____, and it occurs at a much higher rate among Japanese than Europeans. This suggests that genetic variation influences the manner in which cultural structures formalize social interactions.

Current views of culture emphasize the _____ world in which we live as we acquire information from others that affects our behavior.

Because of the nature of the Chinese writing system compared with Western alphabets, imaging studies show more activation in the _____ areas of both hemispheres when reading Chinese as compared with reading a Western language.

Norenzayan and Sherif propose that particular religious beliefs and behaviors are evolutionary adaptations for group living in large communities that have maximized genetic fitness. The problem with this approach is that it does not account for

The term _____ refers to the manner in which environmental conditions bring forth particular cultural practices. For example, research suggests that different environmental patterns, such as scarce resources versus supportive environments, may influence which infant attachment patterns are most productive.

Discuss the three key concepts in studying culture from an evolutionary perspective, as proposed by Henrich and McElreath (2007).

The theory of _____ suggests that competition among social groups could favor the spread of fitness-enhancing cultural beliefs and prosocial behavior.

Nisbett and his colleagues have found that people from East Asia tend to pay more attention to _____, whereas people from the West tend to pay more attention to _____.

Flinn (2005) described seven characteristics of human culture. Which of the following is NOT one of these characteristics?

Using fear faces of Japanese and Caucasian individuals, Chiao and his colleagues (2008) found participants showed greater amygdala activation when viewing members of

It is thought that writing was developed as humans made the transition from _____ to _____.

Tomasello and colleagues (2005) emphasize the development of _____ during the human infant's first two years of life as the basic cognitive skills needed for the development of culture.

The field of cultural neuroscience is defined by a number of themes. Which of the following is NOT one of them?