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74 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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culture
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traditionally defined as patterns of though, activity, and artifact
central concept of anthro |
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The Standard Social Science Model (SSSM)
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Humans equipped wit honly a few instencts (PESSL)
nearly everything complex about humans is an emergent social process which has little to do with innate structure of the mind we LEARN/ADOPT what is around us - society influences us |
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PESSL
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poop, eat, sleep, screw, learn
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DUNG FLIES
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we are designed to be disgusted by it - they are designed to like it
the disgust response is universal natural selection created a program in humans minds - environments did not influence this response |
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Human Evolution in Perspective
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we were hunter-gatherers for 6 million years
the world we live in is RADICALLY different than what the majority of human life has lived in |
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Evolutionary Psychology
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the human mind is made up of a series of programs designed by natural selection
these programs are designed to solve a set of specific adaptive problems (relating to survival and reproduction - help you with them - seeking out allies, food, shelter, avoiding predators, etc) faced by our ancestors adaptive problems include finding food acquiring mates, maintaining social relationships, etc |
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Twinkies
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our minds were designed to seek out fat, sugar, salt - never left the design of our minds - obesity epidemic
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pathogens and human evolution
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30-50% of hunter-gatherers die of disease before reproductive age
we've evlolved to find cues of health attractive this adds to PESSL we seek partners with facial symmetry - signs of strong immune systems |
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revisiting culture
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epidemiological
spreads from person-to-person via learning and imitation learning and imitation still reuire complex nature evoked manifested as a collective (pop. of individuals) response to a shared environmental cue may not involve any element of learning or imitation, but can still create "culture" |
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Pathogens and Evoked Culture
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Humans did not experience uniform pathogen threat
mate preferences may have evolved to shift in the presence of high pathogen load some enviornments may evoke increased preferences for physical attractiveness strong correlation between parasite prevalence and importance of physical attractiveness (studied in 29 nations) environments where there are high pathogens, people want greater physically attractive people |
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SSSM Sumary
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The mind is a blank slate minus PESSL
Humans hav only a few insincts everything else is learned through society |
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EV PSYCH Summary
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The mind is FAR from blank
humans have many instincts almost everything complex and uniquely "human" is an emergent social process which is critically dependent on the innate structure of the mind |
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Lessons of EV Psych
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does not predict that everyone will be the same everywhere
traits that are not absolute universals are not necessarily "non-biological" we have biological programs that are designed to vary, and put out different types of out-put we will find things that are not universals, but are part of the human design of the mind |
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Are cultural differences exaggerated?
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social scientists sometimes exaggerate differences
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chambri
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sex-reversed society according to Mead
supported womens rights at the time - gender is social men had REALLY been depressed due to a recent defeat |
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hofstede's Survey
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117,000 IBM employees in 53 countries
wants to find out how culture influence organizations early 80's usually not this big of a study used factor analysis found that nations varied in Individualism/Collectivism found about 6 dimensions in culture in IBM in 53 countries |
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Individualist society
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ties between individuals are loose
everyone is expected to look after themselves and their own famlies |
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collectivist society
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individuals are integrated into strong, cohesive in-grous (families, sororities, etc.)
everyone is expected to show loyalty and look after fellow in-group members |
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differences in east Asia and Western societies
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japan and the Us - common examples
japan = collectivist conform, collectivity US = classic individualist emphasize individuality |
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Individualism and Collectivism
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in Hofstede's orignial data GNP strongly predicts individualism
stronger correlation between GNP and Individualism - poorer countries were moere collectivist; wealthier countries were more individualists |
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GNP and I-C
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GNP and individualism is very tightly linked
can afford to be individualistic could be due to evoked culture |
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The Pen and the Mind
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Kim and MArcus in 1999
at airport ask people to answer a survey then give them a choice of a pen as a reward for completing four blue pens, and one red one always had a minority pen (different colors) thought the easterneres would not want to choose the the minority pen thought the westerners would take the minority pen- TRUE |
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2009- Yamagishi - Pen experiement
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repeats experiment but tells them they are the LAST person to do the survey
both take the minority pen does another experiement saying they can BUY the pen both take the minority pen preferences vs. strategies eastern cultures want to be polite |
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Hirai (2000)
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found that Japanese were not individually collectivistic, but believed other Japanese were
similar findings in the south dont intrinsically want that - feel as though they have to this contributes to the persistence of collectivistic norms that do not demonstrate actual personal preferences |
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Actual vs. Ideal affect
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Tsai's experiments found that chinese and americans differed more in ideal affect than actual affect
americans ideally wanted to experience more "high arousal" states than chinese, but both groups reported very similar actual affect |
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Summary of I-C
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Individualism - Collectivism has been exaggerated, especially in desvribing East - West differences
ma be accounted for differences in resource availabilty (evoked culture) may reflect differnet strategies, rather than radially different personal world views or preferences |
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Norms and Behaviors
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how people are supposed to act is almost always different than how they should act
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Primary Sources
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Cross-cultural questionnaires/experiments
the ethnographic record of current and past societires |
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unit of analysis
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a person
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"cultures"
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most are a group of like-minded individuals named by individuals that have observed them
names usually just mean "the people" when translated |
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People who Observe
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travelers
conquerors ethnographers most info comes from ethnographers historically men, white |
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ethnography
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collection of written information on a socierty;s practices, people, beliefs, etc, usually written by a single person
ethnogrpahers may have personal interests, focus due to mainly being men - difficulty speaking to women re: sex, vice versa |
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ethnographic record
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HUGE - not all cultures studied are completely different (regional similarities, groups talk to each other, etc)
Composite of all ethnographic writings oncurrent and past societies unbelievably huge. very few anthropologist have a good grasp of it |
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Coding
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extracting info from an ethnography, usually in away that is statistically analyzable and comparable across cultues
can correspond to almost anything: marriage systems, frequency of warfare, sexual taboos, etc. coders do not know the exact question of the researcher, but know what criteria to ask |
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Th ethnographic Atlas
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only attempt to create "exhaustive" directory of known world cultures
spearhead by Murdock. includes coded data. ended up with 1,264 cultures |
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HRAF (human relations area files): Probablity Sample
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Attempt to create a randomly sampled set of well-described societies, more restrictive than SCCS
done by Murdock and his associates had to be there fr 2 years, etc then they choose randomly from the groups that met the SPECIFIC CRITERIA less coded data than SCCS comes from overlap from the sccs, some of the random ones chosen just happened to be in both 60 cultures |
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Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS)
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attempt ot create asmaller sample of world's known and well-described societies
lots of coded data 186 cultures |
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whats real?
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ONE HUMAN CULTURE
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Absolute universals
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a universal characteristic present in all recorded human societies
very common and very rare blind to them- engrained into society |
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marriage as a universal
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all cultures have relationships that are dyads
consummated very simply - living under the same roof |
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egalitarian socities - few status distinctions, buth tey are still there
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does not describe utopian societies
everyone is relatively equal until you make distinctions relative equalitu among adult males NO SOCIETY THAT DOES NOT MAKE DISTINCTIONS BASED ON GENDER AND AGE |
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status and prestige
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all cultures have status and prestige, some culture really emphasize status distinctions, others dont, but it is still there
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Near Universals
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Many universals are "near" universals: they seem to be present everywhere save a few societies
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Why a near universal?
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missing data (just didnt write about it)
improperly coded data ( may have written down something that wasn't true, blind to the hypothesis, etc.) ethnographer error (bad informant, asked bad questions, etc) unknown transient effects (Chambuli) - falls under ethnographer error meads mistake - sexually reversed society genuine, interesting, exception |
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Alien Society
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many claims have been made about exceptional societies that lack some putative human universal
eg: Hoti - no concept of genealogy and have aversion to incest BUT they have words for mother, and father WESTERMARK - people are separated form siblings at a young age - dont get those cues - incest is less avoidable |
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statistical universals
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a universal that exists "abov chance expectation" in prevalence
for the most part do not exist only exception is cultural traits that we have a prior reason to suspect might be distributed by 50/50 |
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conditional universals
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if A then B, or if A then a tendency to B
usually if A then a tendency to B ex: pathogens - if pathogens, then a tendency towards preferring physical attractiveness evoked culutes is always an example of a conditional universal something has to evoke it |
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Fixed Pool Universal
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a fixed set of building blocks from which another characteristic is formed
also a specific form of conditional universal ( if A, then some subset of B, C, D, E) |
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Fixed Pool Characteristics: Language
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variable language systems
all use the same ore building blocks -innate language faculty ---designed to be enabled to learn language and decode language at a ridiculously fast rate ---programs in head that only decode language -critical period where you must learn language - stop around 14 to 16 all languages have nouns and verbs, use phonemes fixed pool- part of human nature |
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Fixed Pool Characteristics: Kinship
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variable kinship systems
use core building blocks make distinctions based on some combinaiton of sex, generation, and lineal/collateral kin |
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former vs. New Universals
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constant childbirth vs. constant menstruation
high infant mortality cs. low infant mortality very high interpersonal violence vs. low (er) interpersonal violence no ecological mindset vs. some ecological mindset |
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deep vs. shallow universals
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every society that has cars also as roads
every society that has ipods has opod cables lots of this stuff exists, very little information about humans though!! |
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Experiential Universal: Color Associations
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brightness is more psotively evaluated than "darkness"
survey from 30 cultures predated on in the dark - more dangerous at night - more so when you are a child - reason children are afraid of the dark - kids hide- predator cant see you |
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Making Arguments for Universality
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We can find no exceptions
We compared two very different cultures we looked a subset of the ethnographic record we looked at infants or very young children used experiments/surveys in many different nations |
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the natural and the moral
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people sometimes reflexively confuse natural with moreal good or at least excusable
some people will also actively resist portrayals of the natural world as save or indifferent |
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the naturalistic fallacy
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more or excusalbe is natural
immoral or inexcusable is unnatural natural by its very nature is not moral |
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sex
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biological equipment
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gender
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societal idea about the behavioral characteristics of the sexes - gender identity, gender politics
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humans are animals
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across mamalia nearly all speies have males that are larger and more agressive than female of the same species
none of them have culture or socialization males are typically larger and more aggressive than females only controversial in social sciences |
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Perceived Sex Differences: Universal
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why is it constructed the same way across cultures?
Williams and Best (1990) -a list of 300 adjectives rated by 2500 people in 25 countries -participants had to rate each word as more descriptive of men, women, or neither in their own culture RESULTS: at least 2/3 of the pop. could agree that men and women were more lik... and vice versa - includes males and females deciding for the opposite sex cross-cultural effect of agreed universal differences between the sexes |
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Conclusions of William and Best
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views changed throughout the experiement
substantial degree of behaviroal validity to differences between the sexes - not just socially constructed |
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Actual Sex Differences: Universal
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Costa et al. (2001)
studied personality characteristic in 26 culture`s with a total sample size of ~23,000 CONCLUSIONS: gender differences are moderate in magnitude -women on average are higher positive and negative in affect, more concerned with feelings than ideas, submissive, nurturance |
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Sex Differences in Infancy
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preferences for sex-typed toys seen in infants
very young children show predicted differences in aggressiveness |
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Sex-Reversed Societies Do Not Exist
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no examples in the ethnographic record of any society where womenare more aggressive than men of the same society
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Humans are less hairy?
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use of fire - not being on fire is good
having fire as a heat source means less bodily energy can be expending on growing hair |
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fire and the human mind
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unique relationship with fire
fear it, yet are drawn to it even in its absence, it is salient - use it to describe things |
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Women Cook
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women do most of the cooking around the world
not invented by capitalism/western society rare exceptions - usually due to miscoding, males feast, difficult preparation of food |
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Dead reckoning
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women are better at it when it involves immobile food, and when it is calorically dense
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better at remembering the placement of immobile food resources?
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women - when its fruit, not animla,s buildings, or jewelry (no difference)
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ovulation
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eff is deposited in the uterus and is available to be fertilized by sperm
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estrous swellings
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swelling of genital and anal regions to signal to males thatthe females are undergoing ovulation
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women hide ovulation
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natural selection selected females that did not display their ovulation
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the theft hypothesis
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males can bully females for food - when its cooked and prepared
producer/scrounger game - males scrounge. females attempt to reduce scrounging by forming alliances with males use males as protection from other males quid-pro-quo SEX hide ovulation so men dont know that sex is useless women are the only species that are continuously sexually receptive |
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Cooking has Freed Men
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women do the cooking men are free to do other things
wives sometimes beaten in small-scale societeis if meals are not cooked consistently and promptly |
