Anth 121: Chapter 02 Key Terms

Front 1

Define: acculturation

Back 1

the exchange of cultural features that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct

Front 2

Define: core values

Back 2

key, basic, or central values that integrate a culture and help distinguish it from others

Front 3

Define: cultural relativism

Back 3

The position that the values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect. Anthropology is characterized by methodological rather than moral relativism: In order to understand another culture fully, anthropologists try to understand its members' beliefs and motivations. Methodological relativism does not preclude making moral judgments or taking action.

Front 4

Define: cultural rights

Back 4

Doctrine that certain rights are vested not in individuals but in identifiable groups, such as religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies.

Front 5

Define: diffusion

Back 5

Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries.

Front 6

Define: enculturation

Back 6

The social process by which culture is learned and transmitted across the generations.

Front 7

Define: ethnocentrism

Back 7

The tendency to view one's own culture as best and to judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one's own standards.

Front 8

Define: generality

Back 8

Culture pattern or trait that exists in some but not all societies

Front 9

Define: globalization

Back 9

The accelerating interdependence of nations in a world system linked economically and through mass media and modern transportation systems.

Front 10

Define: hominid

Back 10

A member of the taxonomic family that includes humans and the African apes and their immediate ancestors.

Front 11

Define: hominins

Back 11

A member of the human lineage after its split from ancestral chimps; used to describe all the human species that ever have existed, including the extinct ones, but excluding chimps and gorillas.

Front 12

Define: human rights

Back 12

Doctrine that invokes a realm of justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions. Human rights, usually seen as vested in individuals, would include the right to speak freely, to hold religious beliefs without persecution, and not to be enslaved.

Front 13

Define: independent invention

Back 13

Development of the same culture trait or pattern in separate cultures as a result of comparable needs and circumstances.

Front 14

Define: intellectual property rights (IPR)

Back 14

Each society's cultural base—its core beliefs and principles. IPR is claimed as a group right—a cultural right, allowing indigenous groups to control who may know and use their collective knowledge and its applications.

Front 15

Define: international culture

Back 15

Cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries.

Front 16

Define: national culture

Back 16

Cultural experiences, beliefs, learned behavior patterns, and values shared by citizens of the same nation.

Front 17

Define: particularity

Back 17

Distinctive or unique culture trait, pattern, or integration.

Front 18

Define: subcultures

Back 18

Different cultural symbol-based traditions associated with subgroups in the same complex society.

Front 19

Define: symbol

Back 19

Something, verbal or non-verbal, that arbitrarily and by convention stands for something else, with which it has no necessary or natural connection.

Front 20

Define: universal

Back 20

Something that exists in every culture.