Social and Cultural Change
Pre-Test Questions
Course Introduction
This course examines the processes and consequences of social and cultural change in contemporary societies. Students will explore theories and models that explain how and why cultures and social structures evolve over time, considering factors such as globalization, technological advancement, migration, social movements, and policy reforms. Through case studies and critical analysis, the course investigates the impact of changing norms, values, and institutions on individual and collective identities, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities that arise with such transformation. By the end of the course, students will gain a deeper understanding of the forces shaping societies and the dynamics driving cultural adaptation and resistance.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 14th Edition by Carol
R. Ember
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Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology
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Q1) Which type of anthropological knowledge is often applied to forensic investigations?
A) biological
B) linguistic
C) cultural
D) archaeological
Answer: A
Q2) What is the focus of cross-cultural researchers?
A) They hope to discover general patterns about cultural traits.
B) Their goal is to minimize the effects of cultural homogenization.
C) They are interested in finding the best ways of behaving.
D) They bridge the gap between anthropology and other social sciences.
Answer: A
Q3) Which of the following disciplines would have the greatest overlap with archaeologists researching early toolmaking?
A) geology
B) geography
C) anatomy
D) sociology
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Culture and Culture Change
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Q1) When a member of a group diverges from acceptable standards, or norms, of social behavior, he/she may be ridiculed, arrested, or otherwise pressured into conformity through what Emile Durkheim referred to as __________.
A) cultural constraints
B) cultural relativism
C) cultural penalties
D) ethnocentrism
Answer: A
Q2) Anthropologists, as well as other social scientists, feel that culture is __________.
A) learned and shared
B) inherited
C) transmitted only from one group to another
D) only a small part of how people learn their behaviors
Answer: A
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Chapter 3: Culture and the Individual
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Q1) Cross-cultural studies have shown that both cognitive abilities among children and their ability to think abstractly are influenced by how much __________ they receive.
A) schooling
B) breast milk
C) nurturing
D) protein
Answer: A
Q2) We often talk about personality types as either "individualist" or "collectivist." What objections have been raised against using this common dichotomy to explore cross-cultural differences in personality?
Answer: The ideal answer should include: 1. Connection between individual/collective and Western/non-Western dichotomies
2. Examples of other psychological dimensions that do not fit this pattern
3. Differences in ideal versus actual personality types within a culture
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Chapter 4: Understanding and Explaining Culture
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Q1) An anthropologist comparing kinship terms between the Turkana and the Maasai-both pastoral peoples from East Africa-is doing __________.
A) regional controlled comparison
B) within-culture comparison
C) cross-cultural research
D) historical research
Q2) What do scientists use as predictions of what might be found in a study?
A) hypotheses
B) theories
C) statistics
D) associations
Q3) Participant-observation refers to the __________.
A) practice of immersing oneself in the language and customs of a society
B) use of a laboratory to standardize measurements
C) observation of how people interact in carefully contrived situations
D) employment of natives to gather information from their peers
Q4) What are anthropological theoretical orientations? Explain this term using your newly developed understanding of the scientific definitions of theories, hypotheses, and laws. Give specific examples to support your essay.
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Chapter 5: Communication and Language
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Q1) Why can we not use the languages of nonliterate societies to learn about the origins of language?
A) Their languages are not simpler or less developed than our own.
B) Their written histories do not go far enough back in time.
C) They were often developed more recently than written languages.
D) Languages of nonliterate societies change too quickly to be any use for study.
Q2) It is estimated that __________ percent of the world's languages are endangered.
A) 50 to 90
B) 30 to 50
C) 90 to 95
D) 15 to 25
Q3) What do linguists mean when they refer to grammar?
A) unconscious principles that predict how most people talk
B) prescriptive rules that people are supposed to follow when speaking
C) geographical variation within a single language
D) traits in a person's speech that serve as clues to their education and status
Q4) Compare and contrast human and nonhuman communication.
Q5) Explain how the field of historical linguistics traces cultural connections through related languages.
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Chapter 6: Getting Food
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Q1) Why are intensive agriculturalists more likely to face food shortages than horticultural societies?
A) Intensive agriculturalists often produce crops for market.
B) Horticulture is usually more productive than intensive agriculture.
C) Horticulture involves more complex and reliable technology.
D) Intensive agriculturalists usually live in more challenging environments than horticulturalists.
Q2) By "food collection," anthropologists mean the obtaining of food from __________.
A) wild plants and animals
B) wild plants only
C) domesticated plants and animals
D) plants, wild and domesticated
Q3) What archaeological evidence is needed to support the Binford-Flannery model?
A) population increase before the emergence of domestication
B) evidence of seafood in conjunction with agricultural fields
C) artifacts indicating long periods of trade with food-producing societies
D) skeletal evidence of domesticated animals
Q4) What social characteristics are associated with foragers and complex foragers?
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Chapter 7: Economic Systems
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Q1) Give specific examples of how you, personally, have recently participated in generalized reciprocity, balanced reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange.
Q2) In which groups of pastoralists is private ownership most likely to develop?
A) those that depend on selling their products to non-pastoralists
B) groups that have limited space for grazing
C) groups in which people must save some of their herds for future generations
D) those that use their animals to represent wealth
Q3) What happens to generalized reciprocity in times of scarcity?
A) Sharing tends to increase during times of food shortage, but not famine.
B) Sharing tends to increase during times of famine, but not food shortage.
C) Sharing tends to increase during both food shortage and famine.
D) Sharing tends to decrease during both food shortage and famine.
Q4) Critically discuss the costs and benefits of having a market exchange economy. What advancements can be gained from this economic system? What social institutions are lost?
Q5) Explain the relationship between the allocation of resources and food production.
Show how foragers, horticulturalists, pastoralists, and intensive agriculturalists denote ownership of land, food, and tools.
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Chapter 8: Social Stratification: Class, Ethnicity, and Racism
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Q1) What is unusual about the class system in the United States?
A) Many people deny the existence of classes.
B) There is a very high degree of social mobility.
C) Classes are not directly related to wealth.
D) We have a low degree of inequality between classes.
Q2) Which of the following best represents an egalitarian society?
A) There are as many positions of prestige in any given social group as there are persons capable of filling them.
B) All people within a society have exactly the same rights and responsibilities.
C) Societies prevent individuals from gaining prestige or power by frequently rotating leadership positions.
D) People are not praised for their skills or abilities because the society prefers to emphasize the equality of all members.
Q3) How do castes and class systems interact?
A) Castes may exist in conjunction with more open class systems.
B) Castes have been replaced by more open class systems.
C) Castes take the place of more open class systems.
D) Castes are a subset of an open class system.
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Chapter 9: Sex and Gender
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Q1) Which type of society generally has the most favorable view of gender equality?
A) post-industrial societies
B) cultures relying on agriculture
C) industrial societies
D) cultures relying on pastoralism
Q2) A gender role involves __________.
A) the way societies assign or divide labor by gender
B) the beliefs and attitudes particular to one gender or another
C) ascetic ideas about the way a man or woman should look
D) differential access to resources and power based on gender
Q3) How do household chores relate to changes in subsistence strategies?
A) Household chores increase with increasing agriculture.
B) Household chores decrease with increasing agriculture.
C) Household chores increase when shifting from foraging to pastoralism.
D) Household chores decrease when shifting from foraging to pastoralism.
Q4) How is gender assigned in the United States?
A) by external biological attributes
B) based on parental preference
C) by newborn behavioral traits
D) based on hormone levels
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Marriage and the Family
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Q1) Societies that practice bride exchange tend to __________.
A) depend on a relatively high contribution of women to primary subsistence
B) have a high level of social stratification and a low status for women
C) arrange marriages as lifelong contracts between rival kin groups
D) require a long period of bride service before the marriage takes place
Q2) Same-sex marriages are __________.
A) not typical in any known society
B) prohibited in all societies
C) fairly common in some societies
D) the norm in a few societies
Q3) Some polygynous societies try to reduce competition by practicing sororal polygyny, which is when the co-wives are __________.
A) sisters
B) good friends
C) of similar temperament
D) of very different ages
Q4) If some form of male-female marriage is nearly universal, it is reasonable to believe that it is in some way adaptive. Discuss the various theories for why marriage is nearly universal, and explain which idea you feel offers the strongest explanation.
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Chapter 11: Marital Residence and Kinship
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Q1) Patrilineal societies, but not matrilineal societies, tend to be __________.
A) locally exogamous
B) kin group endogamous
C) kin group exogamous
D) locally endogamous
Q2) In societies that recognize bilateral kinship, members of the household use the same kinship terms for both __________ and __________ kin.
A) consanguineal; affinal
B) neolocal; patrilocal
C) matrilineal; patrilineal
D) ambilineal; marital
Q3) The kin terms of a society are __________.
A) very resistant to change
B) dynamic and creative
C) tightly linked to family structure
D) associated with economic system
Q4) Explain the differences between a lineage and a clan, and give examples of societies that use each descent system.
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Chapter 12: Associations and Interest Groups
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Q1) Compare and contrast ethnic associations with multiethnic associations.
Q2) How do men's associations differ from age-sets in noncommercial societies?
A) There are more stages in age-sets than in men's associations.
B) Age-sets are open to both men and women.
C) Only men's associations follow an individual throughout his life span.
D) One may change the age-set membership, but not membership in a men's association.
Q3) Why are rotating credit associations common in societies with a traditional sharing system?
A) You are obliged to help when others ask for money, so it's easier to save if you have an obligation to save for your contribution.
B) Rotating credit associations are by nature an altruistic venture, with individual contributors receiving little in return.
C) Societies with traditional sharing systems rarely have formal banking institutions, so there is no alternative way to save money.
D) Rotating credit is a complex version of generalized reciprocity, which has its roots in traditional sharing systems.
Q4) Discuss the reasons that may explain why voluntary associations exist.
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Chapter 13: Political Life: Social Order and Disorder
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Q1) Large-scale warfare is usually practiced by societies with __________.
A) intensive agriculture or industrialization
B) foraging or horticulture
C) small-scale or intensive agriculture
D) horticulture or pastoralism
Q2) Level of political integration refers to the __________.
A) largest territorial group on whose behalf political activities are organized
B) degree of political knowledge possessed by the average individual
C) balance of political representation between men and women
D) proportion of the population who are actively involved in politics
Q3) Which of the following situations is an example of a community action against a transgressor?
A) expulsion for failing to heed a taboo
B) paying a fine for breaking a law
C) retribution for a single act of murder
D) being rejected by a friend after stealing his/her money
Q4) What factors are associated with a culture's degree of individual political participation?
Q5) Compare and contrast the political life of bands and tribal organizations.
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Chapter 14: Religion and Magic
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Q1) Beatrice Whiting suggests that sorcery or witchcraft will be found in societies that
A) lack procedures or authorities to deal with crime
B) have a high degree of social inequality
C) have recently had a traumatic social upheaval
D) lack dependable access to vital resources
Q2) What signs have archaeologists uncovered that suggest religious belief dates back to nearly 60,000 years ago?
A) grave goods
B) written texts
C) ancient songs
D) temple ruins
Q3) Analyze the different explanations put forth to explain the universality of religion.
Q4) Which practice in Christianity represents the common ritual of eating a sacred meal?
A) communion
B) praying the rosary
C) baptism
D) penance
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Chapter 15: The Arts
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Q1) How has the art of the Shoshone-Bannock people changed over the last 100 years?
A) It has become more complex as social stratification has increased.
B) It has changed from a male domain to one dominated by women.
C) Nearly all of the traditional patterns have been replaced with Westernized ones.
D) They have borrowed motifs from disparate Native American groups, making a wholly new style.
Q2) Alan Dundes thinks that Native American folktales have characteristic structures, including __________.
A) movement away from disequilibrium in society, expressing the need to rectify conditions in society causing disharmony
B) movement toward disequilibrium in order to express the randomness of the world
C) the need to have happy endings in myths
D) the need to show a character's moral development through the course of the story
Q3) Are the categories "tourist art" and "fine art" mutually exclusive? Why or why not?
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Chapter 16: Practicing and Applying Anthropology
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Q1) What is one of the most important steps in developing an effective project?
A) understanding why previous projects failed
B) forcing the project on the local people through economic sanctions
C) raising support for the project from sponsors
D) implementing the project slowly and gradually
Q2) What negative side effect came with the FUNAI plan to introduce rice agriculture to the BakairÃ?
A) The people became dependent on cash for fuel, fertilizer, and repairs.
B) They ended up with less food after the introduction of agriculture than they had had previously.
C) Many of the children developed nutritional deficiencies after shifting to a simpler diet.
D) The dominant members of society hoarded the wealth for themselves.
Q3) Which of the following was one of the strategies used by Gerald Murray's successful reforestation project in Haiti?
A) providing tree species that could be interspersed with other crops
B) giving farmers seedlings for big, slow-to-mature tree species
C) having farmers plant seedlings in a large communal lot
D) telling farmers that the government owned the trees
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Chapter 17: Health and Illness
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Q1) Which illness is thought of as a "folk illness"?
A) susto
B) depression
C) anorexia nervosa
D) pibloktoq
Q2) Consistent with the biomedical paradigm, physicians tend to treat patients __________.
A) as having conditions, rather than as complete people
B) with a consideration of the mind-body balance
C) for humoral and dietary imbalance
D) for underlying causes rather than for obvious symptoms
Q3) Why is the ritual aspect of many ethnomedical traditions so perplexing to westerners?
A) There is an assumption in biomedicine that the mind is fundamentally different from the body.
B) We have no such rituals in our culture, and so do not understand why they are important.
C) There is evidence that ritual actually worsens the outcome of treatment.
D) Western cultures believe that the less fuss you make over an illness, the faster it will go away.
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Chapter 18: Global Problems
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Q1) Social problems are mostly __________.
A) of human making
B) a result of economic greed
C) a result of divine intervention
D) bad luck
Q2) People in nonindustrial societies mostly go to war __________.
A) as a hedge against the unpredictability of natural disasters
B) for religious reasons
C) as an unconscious means of population control
D) out of self-defense
Q3) In the United States, what factor predicts more overt aggression in adulthood, even after controlling for factors like parental neglect and family income?
A) more television
B) classroom crowding
C) family size
D) poor nutrition
Q4) What social factors increase the likelihood of family violence?
Q5) How does homelessness in the United States compare to homelessness in other parts of the world?
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