Deck 16: Culture, Cooperation, and Human Uniqueness

Question 1

Which of the following is evidence against the mismatch hypothesis?

A) Members of contemporary hunter-gatherer bands are not as closely related as thought, and unrelated individuals in most societies cooperate often.
B) People frequently move between bands, so cooperation of any kind is impossible.
C) Individuals cooperate only with family members.
D) Cooperation is simply rarely observed among most human groups.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Most cultural traditions in nonhuman primates can be accounted for by

A) social facilitation.
B) noncultural factors.
C) genetic differences.
D) the environment.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

A study on capuchins showed that they learn to forage Luhea fruit through

A) observation and trial and error.
B) trial and error.
C) observation alone.
D) genetic adaptation.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Observational learning occurs when

A) an older individual actively helps the young to learn-for example, by manipulating their hands.
B) the activity of older animals indirectly increases the chances that the young will learn the behavior on their own.
C) young animals use older animals as behavioral models.
D) older animals teach younger animals to be social.

Question 5

The mismatch hypothesis holds that the psychological machinery that supports human cooperation evolved in ________ societies.

A) agricultural
B) industrial
C) small hunter-gatherer
D) pastoralist

Question 6

According to your text, humans owe much of their success to what combination of factors?

A) intelligence and the ability to cooperate in the context of culture
B) individuality and perseverance
C) a large brain and superior genes for behavior
D) the ability for social learning and a large population size

Question 7

You have just completed a study of chimpanzee tool use. You noticed that young chimpanzees accompanied females to sites where tools and termites were available, and females practiced termite fishing. Young chimpanzees usually played and socialized with each other while females fed. If these chimpanzees grow up to termite fish themselves, you can conclude that this behavior was passed on through which mechanism?

A) active teaching
B) observational learning
C) social facilitation
D) imitation

Question 8

Which of the following statements about social facilitation is correct?

A) It allows for the development of cumulative culture because individuals from every generation learn each behavioral variant on their own.
B) It allows behavioral variants to be copied and changed by succeeding generations.
C) It results in complex behaviors, skills, belief systems, and bodies of knowledge for nonhuman primates.
D) It occurs because individuals are in situations that allow them to experiment and solve similar problems in the same way.

Question 9

Are culturally transmitted behaviors always adaptive?

A) Yes, otherwise they would quickly disappear.
B) No, some such behaviors are adaptive, some are neutral, and some are maladaptive.
C) No, all such behaviors are neutral.
D) No, only traits transmitted genetically can be adaptive.

Question 10

Which of the following statements about culture is true?

A) It is common in other primates.
B) It occurs only in humans.
C) It is common in other primates, but cumulative cultural change is rare in other animals.
D) It is common in other primates and is also cumulative, just as in humans.

Question 11

Large-scale cooperation among humans may have been favored when

A) relatedness among members of the group was high.
B) relatedness among members of the group was low.
C) predation was high.
D) predation was low.

Question 12

Which of the following statements differentiates humans from other cooperative mammal species?

A) Humans cooperate only with their relatives.
B) Humans cooperate with large numbers of unrelated individuals.
C) Humans rarely cooperate.
D) Humans cooperate only under the supervision of government institutions.

Question 13

You have just completed a study of chimpanzee tool use. You noticed that young chimpanzees accompanied females to sites where tools and termites were available, and females practiced termite fishing. Young chimpanzees usually watched their mothers carefully while they made tools and fed. If these chimpanzees grow up to termite fish themselves, you can conclude that this behavior was passed on through which mechanism?

A) active teaching
B) observational learning
C) social facilitation
D) facilitated teaching

Question 14

Culture is defined in the text as

A) information acquired through social learning.
B) shared knowledge about the world by every member of society.
C) language.
D) behavior that is determined mainly by genes.

Question 15

Most mammals and birds attain appropriate behaviors matched to their environment through

A) personal experience.
B) information passed on from other individuals.
C) information encoded in their genes.
D) a combination of innate, genetic behaviors and personal experience.

Question 16

Cultural group selection differs from natural selection in that

A) differences in cultural adaptations can be established between groups.
B) there is a struggle for existence.
C) there is variation in traits.
D) traits are heritable.

Question 17

The Central Inuit, who inhabited the Canadian Arctic, made a living by

A) hunting and fishing.
B) foraging for nuts and fruit.
C) farming.
D) raising cattle.

Question 18

According to the authors of your textbook, it could be argued that

A) evolution, as often conceived as a process of natural selection shaping existing traits or creating new ones over time, is in one sense over for humans.
B) human evolution and the rise of new traits is rapidly continuing as humans biologically adapt to their environments.
C) genetic evolution is more likely today than it was before the advent of agriculture 10 ka.
D) natural selection is completely irrelevant to the study of human behavior and mate choice in modern societies.

Question 19

Social facilitation occurs when

A) an older individual actively helps the young to learn-for example, by manipulating their hands.
B) the activity of older animals indirectly increases the chances that the young will learn the behavior on their own.
C) young animals use older animals as behavioral models.
D) older animals teach younger animals to be social.

Question 20

Cumulative cultural change is possible

A) with social facilitation only.
B) with observational learning only.
C) only when learning is mainly genetic.
D) only in humans.

Question 21

Chimpanzees and capuchins likely lack complex cultural repertoires in part because

A) they rarely copy others' behavior.
B) individuals settle on only one technique once it is learned.
C) individuals blindly copy all of the observed behavior's details.
D) individuals are unable to imitate behaviors.

Question 22

Why can cultural inheritance lead to outcomes not predicted by evolutionary theory?

Question 23

Which of the following statements correctly describes the Turkana?

A) They practice farming.
B) They live in permanent settlements.
C) They frequently engage in warfare.
D) They have a hierarchical political system with a king.

Question 24

Define social facilitation, observational learning, and emulation. How do these different types of learning mechanisms play a role in shaping human culture?

Question 25

Imagine you are a European explorer living in nineteenth-century Europe and you decide to embark on an expedition to explore the Arctic. Based on historical evidence, how likely are you to survive this journey and why?

Question 26

Which of the following did the Yurok do?

A) They built pyramids.
B) They built snow houses that kept them warm during frigid winters.
C) They made a living by raising and herding cattle.
D) They constructed weirs to harvest salmon, requiring the labor of hundreds of men from different villages.

Question 27

How does culture differ between human and nonhuman primates? How is it similar?

Question 28

Which of the following is a typical outcome of the dictator game?

A) Proposers allocate 20% to 30% of their endowments to the other player.
B) Proposers allocate 80% to 90% of their endowments to the other player.
C) Proposers refuse to allocate any of their endowments to the other player.
D) Proposers receive a 20% bonus for being generous.

Question 29

Large-scale cooperation can be maintained through

A) punishment of free-riders and enforcement of moral normal by third parties.
B) pure and unselfish altruism by most individuals in the group.
C) an altruism gene that reverses the effects of kin selection.
D) extremely low levels of relatedness that result from regular inbreeding.

Question 30

Which of the following statements about the members of the Franklin Expedition of 1846 is true?

A) They perished because they were unable to figure out how to adapt to the arctic habitat.
B) They succeeded in surviving the harsh arctic conditions.
C) They had access to accumulated local knowledge.
D) They brought with them a diverse tool kit.

Question 31

Emulation occurs when individuals

A) perform an action by watching the behavior of others.
B) learn the end state of a behavior but not the behavior that generated the end state.
C) have an increased chance of learning a behavior when others have that behavior.
D) learn a behavior by following the first steps and then figure out the rest on their own.

Question 32

Which of the following comparisons between genetic evolution and cultural evolution is correct?

A) Cultural evolution is slower.
B) Cultural evolution is faster because it can occur in individuals and be passed on.
C) Cultural evolution occurs at the same rate.
D) Cultural evolution is faster because it alters the underlying genes, which then quickly spread through the population.

Question 33

What do game theory scenarios illustrate about the nature of human cooperation? Include in your answer a discussion of the dictator game and the ultimatum game.

Question 34

When chimpanzees are shown a specific behavior, which of the following statements is true?

A) They typically copy it faithfully.
B) They typically do not copy it.
C) They typically only copy the components that are relevant to achieving an outcome.
D) They typically copy only a few randomly chosen components.

Question 35

In what ways is human cooperation different from that of other mammal species?