Anthropology Test #1

Front 1

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

Back 1

-all human societies progressed from savagery→barbarism→ civilization and societies progressed at different speeds
-very ethnocentric

Front 2

Franz Boas

Back 2

-historical particularism
-said all human beings were biological equals
-differences among human societies were result of culture alone
-the form that culture took depended on its history rather then panhuman form of development
-meant that:
1) cultures could only be evaluated on their own terms rather then by “universal yardstick”
2) general laws of growth could be found (controlled cultural comparison)

Front 3

Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead

Back 3

-culture and personality theory
-culture can be understood through person and personalities
-cultures have themes
-more relativistic
-each culture has a unique configuration that shaped the personalities of its members

Front 4

Sigmund Freud

Back 4

-psychological school of thought
-cognition, emotion, perception, and mental health
-saw evolution as a psychological process
-psychological development of the individual repeated that of human society

Front 5

Clifford Geertz

Back 5

interpretive school of thought
-culture as a text
-“culturally specific web of significance”
-emic perspective
-symbolic and interpretive anthropology
-believes that people use symbols to help them understand their own culture
-culture is like a story people tell themselves about themselves, which gives meaning and poignancy to their lives

Front 6

Malinowski

Back 6

-functionalist perspective of social stratification
-society functions to meet biological needs of individuals and when those individual needs are meet, then the individuals can serve the society as a whole
-psychological functionalism focused on humans physical and psychological needs
-7 universal human needs: nutrition, reproduction, bodily comfort, safety, relaxation, movement, and growth
-examined culture institutions in terms of the ways they functioned to meet these needs

Front 7

Diffusion

Back 7

Diffusion is the spread of cultural elements from one culture to another through cultural contact. Diffusion can happen in many ways; trade, travel, and warfare all promote it. Direct contact among cultures generally results in the most far-reaching changes.

Front 8

Culture and Personality

Back 8

This theory focuses on culture as the principal force in shaping the typical personality of a society as well as on the role of personality in the maintenance of cultural institutions

Front 9

Functionalism/Structural Functionalism

Back 9

This is the anthropological theory that specific cultural institutions function to support the structure of society or serve the needs of individuals in society. Emphasis is on what is changed. Functionalism shows that culture is shared easily and assumes a harmony in society that does not exist. The focus is on the "here and now."

Front 10

Classical Evolutionists

Back 10

Primitive communication > Savagery and Barbarism > Civilization
The order flows from simple to complex. Unilinear evolutionists believed that all cultures would pass through all the stages of evolution. Classical evolutionists believed that all people have the same mental capacity, but develop it at different rates.

Front 11

Neo-evolutionism

Back 11

This is the theoretical perspective concerned with the historical change of culture from small-scale to extremely large-scale societies. Neo-evolutionism removed some prejudices and used ethnology and ethnography to reformulate old ideas. Leslie White and Julian Steward shared neo-evolutionists ideas.

Front 12

Cognitive Anthropology

Back 12

Cognitive anthropology is a theoretical approach that defines culture in terms of the rules and meanings underlying human behavior, rather than behavior itself.

Front 13

Interpretive/symbolic Anthropology

Back 13

This is a theoretical approach that emphasizes culture as a system of meaning and proposes that the aim of cultural anthropology is to interpret the meanings that culture acts have for their participants.

Front 14

Psychological Anthropology

Back 14

Many techniques were pulled from psychology and applied to cultural studies. This form of anthropology studies the way in which people in a specific culture think and act.