Exam 6: Anthropological Explanations

Franz Boas criticized attempts to propose stages of cultural evolution while maintaining that each society must be understood as a product of its own unique history.

According to general evolutionists such as Leslie A. White, since the degree of societal development is measured by the amount of energy harnessed by the sociocultural system, the greater the energy, the more highly evolved the system.

The existence of a "joking relationship" (one in which interaction is typified by friendly teasing) between a man and his brothers-in-law would be explained by anthropologist Radcliffe-Brown as:

According to Karl Marx, society has been divided into classes by the industrial mode of production; those who own the means of production - the capitalists - exploit those who sell their labor to the owners of factories - the proletariat, and this exploitation leads to harsh working conditions and extremely low wages.

A major division in anthropology is between:

In order for diffusionism to work as envisioned by the British and German schools, adherents had to assume or maintain all of the following ideas except:

The concept of maintains that societal change occurs when societies borrow cultural traits from one another.

According to White's theory of the evolution of sociocultural systems, the most highly evolved culture would be one:

Malinowski's psychological functionalism focused on how society functions to serve the interests or needs of the individual.

The cultural ecological perspective of cultural evolution focuses on how specific sociocultural systems adapt to environmental conditions.

The opposite of cultural relativism is:

The term "functionalism" in anthropology refers to the notion that:

Define historical particularism. Do you think that this approach can be compatible with investigations of cultural evolution? Why or why not?

Symbolic anthropologists argue that human behavior cannot be explained through the use of the scientific method. Do you agree with their standpoint? Why or why not?

Explanations for the differences and similarities among societies have been many and varied throughout the development of anthropology. What are the basic premises, strengths, and weaknesses of the following ideas: unilineal evolution, diffusionism, historical particularism, functionalism, and structural functionalism? What are some of the things that anthropologists have learned by employing these perspectives?

The idea that societal and cultural change (or evolution) occurs when societies borrow cultural traits from one another is known as the "Cultural Spread Theory."

An important aspect of theories of "unilineal evolution" was that:

The methodology Morgan used to investigate foreign cultures included:

Compare and contrast the perspectives of the symbolic anthropologists with the Marxists and the cultural materialists.

Compare and contrast the perspectives of the neo-evolutionists, cultural ecologists, cultural materialists, and Marxists. Are these theoretical views similar in any manner, or are they mutually exclusive and contradictory in nature?