Deck 11: Culture in Practice

Question 1

When would researchers use the 'practice approach'?

A) It can be used to illuminate the symbolic and practical effects of what people do.
B) It provides insight into culture change.
C) This approach helps us understand culture's stickiness or how it becomes habitual.
D) Some practices result from others and this approach helps reveal that kind of causal chain
E) All of the answers provided are correct.

Answer 1

E

Question 2

According to researchers, members of mainstream US culture often cannot read or gage masked emotions (they cannot easily tell how people really feel) because people in US culture:

A) focus on vocal inflections
B) look at mouths instead of eyes.
C) look for overt physiological signs of stress.
D) focus on people's hairstyles.
E) give words more attention than facial expressions.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which population is best prepared by their culture to grasp how people really feel even when people hide their emotions?

A) American
B) Japanese
C) Canadian
D) Jamaican
E) Egyptian

Answer 3

B

Question 4

If enough people refuse a cultural recommendation:

A) cultural evolution can occur.
B) genetic evolution can occur.
C) it becomes habitual.
D) it becomes embodied.
E) society collapses.

Question 5

In some US hospitals, male infants are wrapped in blue blankets when they are born, whereas female newborns are bundled in pink blankets. This is because

A) Gender differences are biological
B) Humans all share in a universal system of color symbolism
C) those hospitals participate in cultures that construct these colors as gendered in this way
D) it is crucial to human health to know if a baby is male or female
E) No answer here is correct

Question 6

Gender is to culture as sex is to:

A) society.
B) practice.
C) perception.
D) ideology.
E) biology.

Question 7

Myopia or nearsightedness has doubled in the USA in the last fifty years. Of all the factors listed, this best explained by

A) The reduction of recess time for school children
B) Genetics
C) Straining one's eyes by reading too many books
D) Better access to eye doctors
E) Changes in the US diet

Question 8

Which of these best explains the stunning rise in myopia (nearsightedness) in developed nations in East and Southeast Asia?

A) Too much sunlight on the eyes
B) Habituation to lengthy viewing distances
C) An increased number of hours spent in the classroom or study hall or indoors
D) Faulty retinas
E) Actually the rise is seen among Africans and Laotians, not among East and Southeast Asians

Question 9

The recent increase in the number of people reporting 'gender dysphoria' is linked to:

A) Increased social media use
B) Having one or more peers who have recently come out with a non-normative gender identity
C) More accurate head counts and better understanding of gender diversity
D) Increased exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals
E) All of these factors have been scientifically linked to the rise of gender dysphoria in some way.

Question 10

Which of the following terms denotes a gender performance that-by mainstream US standards-appears concordant with ('matches') one's sex, enabling a person to 'pass' without strangers suspecting that their gender and sex are not in accord?

A) heterosexual
B) transgender
C) androgyny
D) cisnormative
E) dysreguatory

Question 11

What does it mean to be 'cisgender'?

A) you perform your gender in a culturally normative way and one that matches your apparent sex
B) you perform your gender in a culturally normative way
C) it's the same as 'transgender'
D) you perform your gender in a way that matches gender expectations for the opposite sex
E) you are in a culturally constructed 'gender crossover' role and everyone, strangers included, know that you are in this role

Question 12

'Males' generally have which set of chromosomes in the 23rd pair?

A) XYY
B) XXY
C) XX
D) XY
E) None of these options is correct.

Question 13

Gender is to culture as sex is to Assuming for a moment that we can divide biology and culture, gender is a whereas sex is a .

A) progressive organization model ; an antiquated categorization system.
B) hormonal system ; genetic system
C) cultural construct ; biological classification
D) type of mutilation ; biologically-determined system
E) biological category ; cultural product.

Question 14

Digital multitasking is correlated with being

A) So distracted that any net gains from doing more than one thing at once are offset by reductions in how well each task is completed
B) Much more productive overall
C) Better at retaining information than individuals raised in cultures where they don't multitask
D) Less distracted and more focused
E) More effective and less distracted than expert researchers have shown us to be

Question 15

Technically speaking, one's biological sex is

A) the highly complex outcome of the interplay between genetics, hormones, and the environment
B) determined at conception
C) 100% polarized (male or female) with nothing in between
D) Always the cause of one's gender
E) Determined by genital inspection

Question 16

In some cultures, intersex babies are seen as conduits to the gods or links between the natural and supernatural worlds because of their

A) anomalous nature
B) gender
C) self-sufficiency
D) for all of these reasons
E) cisnormativity

Question 17

In one region of the Dominican Republic, it is well known that people can be girls until about twelve and then develop male genitals. This is:

A) a made-up myth that has been circulating for centuries but has no basis in reality
B) why the third sex category, guevedoce, exists there
C) always shocking when it happens because it is unexpected there
D) no answer here is correct
E) never accompanied by a gender switch

Question 18

Veterans returning home after being deployed overseas may experience an abrupt transition that leaves them feeling stuck in between the roles of soldier and civilian. In other words they may feel as if they are in what an anthropologist who has studied 'Rites of Passage' might term a stage in their lives.

A) mundane
B) legitimate
C) reincorporated or reintegrated
D) liminal
E) separation

Question 19

Gender 'fluidity' is generally embraced in what kind of culture?

A) a culture that places a high value on ambiguity
B) a culture that sees the natural and supernatural worlds as vitally linked
C) a culture whose cosmology involves transformational processes
D) All three substantive answers are correct.
E) No answer is correct (no cultures include gender crossover roles officially).

Question 20

A key reason that people who wear high heels may "run like ladies" even when not wearing high heels has to do directly with:

A) the biological fact that girls can't run.
B) the genetic difference between males and females.
C) changes to the Achilles tendon that result from high-heel wearing.
D) whether they are running to, or running from.
E) None of the answers is correct.

Question 21

What does a biocultural approach to human carriage and gesture tell us in regard to how human males and females move their bodies?

A) Male and female gesture and carriage differences are the same across cultures, confirming current understandings of gender's natural basis.
B) Cross-cultural diversity in male and female carriage and gesture norms challenges the assumption that gendered ways of moving the body are 'universal.'
C) How someone moves is wholly a reflection of that person's individual personality.
D) Gesture is an integral part of language, and therefore provides the best insight into the way males and females differentially view or categorize their worlds.
E) Females around the world sit with legs together, and men around the world sit with legs apart; so this is a natural way of sitting tied to 'sex,' not 'gender.'

Question 22

According to the findings of the research team that studied multitasking, what are multitaskers good at?

A) ignoring irrelevant information
B) switching from one task to another
C) believing that they are good at alternating between tasks
D) keeping information in their head nicely and neatly organized
E) performing tasks at a higher quality

Question 23

What is the simple way to explain the difference between 'gender' and 'sex'?

A) Sex is biological, while gender is psychological.
B) Sex is biological, while gender is culturally constructed.
C) Gender is biological, while sex refers to one's sexual orientation.
D) Gender is genetic, while sex is epigenetic.
E) There is no difference; gender and sex are always the same.

Question 24

Which of the following technical terms can be applied when individuals do not display gender-differentiated dress and behavior?

A) transsexuality
B) transgenderism
C) cisnormativity
D) androgyny
E) intersex

Question 25

What best explains why most cultures emphasize male-to-female 'gender crossovers' (e.g., the Zuni 'lhamana') rather than female-to-male 'gender crossovers'?

A) There are more patriarchies than matriarchies.
B) There are more matriarchies than patriarchies.
C) It is more biologically common.
D) Male roles are easier to transition into from childhood than female roles are.
E) Male roles are harder to transition into from childhood than female roles are.

Question 26

How is having a male elder feed boys honey in the school initiation 'Rite of Passage' undertaken by ultra-Orthodox Jewish people equivalent to men feeding boys semen in the male rite of passage undertaken among the Sambia?

A) Mother's milk is replaced with a non-maternal fluid, decreasing the initiate's femininity and increasing his masculinity.
B) It isn't equivalent.
C) It makes the boys hyperactive.
D) It allows women a role in the rite.
E) The substances are the only practical sources of fuel for the body.

Question 27

In which of the following cultural situations would a homosexual or queer sexual identity be seen (culturally constructed) as LEAST problematic?

A) when cultural expectations for masculinity assume (entail) sexual attraction to culturally feminine people and vice versa
B) when sexuality and gender are tightly coupled or linked
C) when family sizes are too small
D) when population growth rates are low
E) when families are as large as is culturally desired and population growth is steady

Question 28

Which of the following is NOT one of the functions of culturally provided 'gender crossover' roles?

A) to provide political guidance for the community as a whole
B) to serve as a gender role model
C) to provide economic benefits to their family
D) to act as a spiritual service provider or a bridge between this human world and the spirit world when needed (e.g., to call for rain or to conduct fertility-bringing ceremonies)
E) to act as a go-between for men and women

Question 29

Cross-culturally, there are more 'rites of passage' for boys than girls for all of the following reasons, EXCEPT (not including) that:

A) the female body's capacity to menstruate provides a natural marker of womanhood's potential onset.
B) the journey to manhood is harder because women raise children.
C) attaining manhood is more important than attaining womanhood.
D) in gender-segregated cultures little boys stay with female kin and have little idea what men do.
E) children of both genders are physically, concretely born out of female bodies, not male bodies.

Question 30

While traditionally 'gender crossover' roles have been explained as conservative, cross-gender performances can be subversive when:

A) conformity to the idealized gender role is purposefully incomplete or poorly executed, and that incompleteness or poor execution is highlighted as a key part of the performance.
B) conformity to the idealized gender role is perfect, for instance in terms of idealized age, attire, and ability to move like a 'real' woman (or man, as the case may be).
C) common and therefore unremarkable.
D) nobody elects to take on those roles.
E) a culture dictates that females rather than males be the ones to take on cross-gender roles.

Question 31

The 'culture as process' or 'practice approach' to culture holds that:

A) culture is a set of rules.
B) culture is a shared set of beliefs.
C) culture emerges from/in the people's actions or practices.
D) culture equals the material objects (artifacts) humans have created.
E) in culture, practice makes perfect.

Question 32

In anthropology, the term 'ethos' means:

A) the set of emotions that people in a given culture may have.
B) the worldview and fundamental values of a given culture.
C) an emotional disease specific to the Maori culture.
D) universal emotions that can be found in every culture.
E) universally recognized ethical principles.

Question 33

Because there is a universally shared muscular aspect to facial emotion expression, the trick to accurately reading masked (hidden) emotions hinges on:

A) looking at eyes rather than mouths.
B) paying attention to a person's mouth corners.
C) looking at ear and nose movement .
D) attending to subtle hand movements.
E) There is no muscular universality to emotional expression.

Question 34

Generally speaking, Japanese proto-emojis (typed out or keyboard-based emojis) focus more on _ __ than American proto-emojis do.

A) mouths
B) eyes
C) chins
D) punctuation marks
E) There is no notable difference; typed emojis are the same around the world.

Question 35

Choose the proto-emoji most likely to be Japanese based on what you know about emotion-reading in Japanese culture.

A) :)
B) *)
C) :-)
D) (;_;)
E) *\o/*

Question 36

Evidence regarding multitasking clearly shows that multitaskers are:

A) distracted and terrible at ignoring irrelevant information.
B) more efficient and effective than those who do not multitask.
C) good at ignoring irrelevant information.
D) good at keeping information nicely organized.
E) taller than average.

Question 37

Which term do we use to refer precisely to the 'making physical' of culture or its internalization in our comportment (movement, how we carry our bodies) and/or anatomy and physiology?

A) embodiment
B) materialization
C) engendering
D) imprinting
E) concretization

Question 38

Human carriage patterns (such as ways of walking or sitting):

A) are culturally influenced and therefore diverse.
B) are biologically determined and therefore universal (i.e., the same across cultures).
C) are biologically determined and therefore diverse (i.e., cross-culturally distinct).
D) cannot be compared.
E) are a developmental adaptation.

Question 39

Which of the following reflects gender's role as a key 'organizing principle'?

A) its use in language (e.g., when all things have a gender)
B) its role in directing our responses to a baby (e.g., in the color of a gift)
C) its function in directing a village in organizing where people sleep
D) No answer is correct (gender is not actually an organizing principle in society).
E) All three substantive answers are correct.

Question 40

What is the first thing a medical doctor will question if puzzled as to whether you are of the male or female 'sex'?

A) hair distribution
B) stem cells
C) culture
D) chromosomes
E) environment

Question 41

What most accounts for your 'gender'?

A) genetics
B) alleles
C) culture
D) chromosomes
E) DNA

Question 42

What did Margaret Mead's findings from research in New Guinea make clear in regard to 'sex' and 'gender'?

A) Sex begets (leads to) gender through biological determinism.
B) Gender expectations are culturally relative.
C) Gender naturally arises out of sex.
D) Gender conformity is determined by sex.
E) Sex and gender are always the same.

Question 43

What kind of data did Margaret Mead rely upon to demonstrate that 'gender' was not biologically determined?

A) ethnographic data from New Guinea
B) demographic data from New Guinea
C) ethnographic data from Samoa
D) epidemiological data from New Guinea
E) ethnographic data from the United States

Question 44

Based on what we read about her work on sex and gender in New Guinea, Margaret Mead can best be classified as:

A) a cultural determinist.
B) a biological determinist.
C) an evolutionary biologist.
D) a unilineal evolutionist.
E) a biocultural anthropologist.

Question 45

In which cultural situation would homosexual (same sex) and/or same-gender sexual interaction be understood or constructed as most highly problematic?

A) When cultural expectations for masculinity entail sexual attraction to culturally feminine people and vice versa.
B) When sexuality and gender are not culturally linked or coupled inversely (in opposition) to one another.
C) When family sizes are large and this meets cultural expectations.
D) When population growth rates are steady.
E) When gender expectations are not highly elaborated or paid much attention to.

Question 46

Technically speaking, someone who straddles the biological border between 'male' and 'female' sex categories is:

A) intersex
B) transgender
C) cisnormative
D) sex-nonconcordant
E) transsexual

Question 47

Which of the following is an 'anomaly' in all cultural contexts?

A) a man who wears makeup
B) anything that crosses or brings together what that culture thinks of as separate
C) a person who occupies or takes on a rare or uncommonly practiced cultural role
D) a person who follows an expected cultural role
E) someone who organizes his or her life according to cultural priorities

Question 48

The androgynous role involves:

A) blending masculine and feminine roles.
B) sex, not gender.
C) a man dressing as a woman (or vice versa).
D) communitas.
E) commensality.

Question 49

What gives 'anomalies' power?

A) They are rare.
B) They cross boundaries preconceived by a culture, disturbing our sense of order.
C) Anomalies have extra characteristics.
D) They directly strengthen our sense of order.
E) Anomalies are always associated with evil.

Question 50

Something that is strictly prohibited in a culture is known as:

A) taboo.
B) an ethos.
C) an anomaly.
D) an androgyne.
E) an archetype.

Question 51

Why are there rules and rituals associated with handling an 'anomaly' such as a mandrake root?

A) to ensure that their power does not go out of control
B) Actually anyone, trained or not, can handle these as long as gardening gloves are worn.
C) anomalies are evil and they must be purified
D) to ring-fence their strong and dangerous odor
E) to diffuse (weaken) their power

Question 52

Across cultures, magical substances are, more often than not, made of:

A) anomalous material/s.
B) male-categorized material/s.
C) female-categorized material/s.
D) common, household items.
E) a material that fits squarely into one cultural category.

Question 53

The power of an 'anomaly' is always:

A) purifying.
B) polluting.
C) disgusting.
D) evil.
E) in need of special handling.

Question 54

What does the 'androgynous' role have in common with the mandrake root's shape?

A) nothing
B) the two terms are synonymous
C) commensality
D) both exhibit communitas
E) both combine categories normally kept apart

Question 55

The 'anomalous' anatomy/biology of intersex individuals:

A) explains why in various cultures they have important and special spiritual powers that are crucial to group well-being.
B) explains why they are always (in all cultures) punished or seen as polluting.
C) blocks them from ever passing as cisgender
D) All of the answer options are wrong.
E) is untrue; intersex individuals are not anomalous in any way.

Question 56

What kind of culture is most likely to include, officially, an accepted third-gender or 'gender crossover' category (such as the Zuni 'lhamana')?

A) a culture that places a high value on ambiguity
B) a culture that sees the natural and supernatural worlds as vitally linked
C) a culture whose cosmology involves transformational processes
D) All three substantive answers are correct.
E) No answer is correct (no cultures include gender crossover roles officially).

Question 57

Females who take on a masculine 'gender crossover' role are most common when:

A) a family has no male heir.
B) a girl has many brothers.
C) a culture is matriarchal.
D) females never do this; only males can occupy gender crossover roles.
E) a family has no economically valuable property to pass down to the next generation.

Question 58

Cross-culturally, 'gender crossover' roles are:

A) always explicitly linked to sexuality.
B) highly institutionalized in all cultures.
C) equally possible in all cultural contexts.
D) more likely to be practiced by males than females.
E) more likely to be practiced where people are poor.

Question 59

People enacting 'gender crossover roles' generally enact the gender they are crossing into in a very _____way.

A) accurate, realistic
B) hard to live up to, exaggerated
C) intersex
D) lazy, poorly executed
E) ethotic

Question 60

When we study it, we see that cross- and transgender behavior:

A) always carries a conservative message, ultimately functioning to maintain socio-cultural order.
B) conceals the culturally constructed nature of gender.
C) is both conservative and subversive.
D) is always a subversive force.
E) has a negative impact in every culture where it is found.

Question 61

Attention from (or the services of) a person in a 'gender crossover' role in a society that offers and authorizes such a role:

A) can be or can involve a blessing.
B) can increase one's fertility.
C) can improve one's luck in love with the opposite sex.
D) All three substantive answers are correct.
E) No answer is correct.

Question 62

What do 'gender crossover' roles, 'rites of passage,' and Margaret Mead's 'sex' and 'gender' data from New Guinea have in common?

A) they all demonstrate the culturally constructed dimension of gender
B) nothing
C) while Mead's data is regarding crossovers, this has nothing to do with rites of passage
D) each speaks to the biological imperative
E) all entail 'communitas'

Question 63

'Rites of Passage' are relevant to investigations of gender's cultural construction because:

A) in many cultures, gender is created by members of a society through rites of passage that they organize and enact.
B) their structure is analogous to the three-fold structure of the nuclear family.
C) women generally oversee men's rites of passage, and vice-versa.
D) of the very small role they have played throughout history in making men men and women women.
E) they show that in some cultures men are feminine and women are masculine, disproving the hypothesis that gender is biologically determined.

Question 64

Any set of acts that moves a person from one status to another is known as a:

A) rite of passage.
B) liminal period.
C) crossover.
D) mundane transition.
E) graduation.

Question 65

A 'rite of passage' refers to:

A) an agreement between nations regarding safe passage of immigrants.
B) a set of ritual acts that move a person from one social status to the next.
C) a firm piece of advice regarding how to improve one's social status.
D) the child's biological development into a man or woman.
E) a status transition marker.

Question 66

In ultra-Orthodox Judaism, circumcision is considered to mark a boy child's:

A) "real" birth, in social terms.
B) first death.
C) transition from male to female.
D) baptism.
E) It marks nothing; it is done strictly for health.

Question 67

'Commensality' is an act in which:

A) people share food during a ritual or in a ritual fashion.
B) a 'rite of passage' commences.
C) people of different cultures share key characteristics.
D) people are between two social states.
E) people share an emotional experience.

Question 68

In many cultures, the first haircut is a 'rite of passage' directly marking:

A) the infant's passage from non-human to human or from gender-neutral to being a boy or a girl.
B) nothing.
C) acceptance of the inevitability of death.
D) progress from childhood to adulthood.
E) a family's increased wealth.

Question 69

Theorists say that 'rites of passage' meant to transform boys into men are much more intense than those to transform girls into women where or when:

A) the masculine and feminine spheres are most sharply divided.
B) boys sleep at night with their fathers instead of on their own or with their mothers.
C) boys sleep at night with their mothers and fathers instead of on their own.
D) women do not take care of the children (men do).
E) masculine and feminine roles overlap greatly.

Question 70

The three parts of a 'rite of passage,' in chronological order, are:

A) separation, transformation, limen.
B) limen, transformation, reincorporation.
C) separation, transformation, reincorporation.
D) reincorporation, transformation, limen.
E) separation, limen, transformation.

Question 71

In the middle part of a 'rite of passage,' initiates (those undergoing the rites) are:

A) frequently sleep-deprived or otherwise kept in an 'altered state' to facilitate the transition experience.
B) frequently sleep-deprived or otherwise kept in an 'altered state' as a form of torture.
C) usually treated like kings and queens (provided the best food and given the most luxurious quarters).
D) generally considered good luck to touch or interact with.
E) generally taught during the day but sent home to their families at night.

Question 72

'Communitas' refers directly to:

A) a bond of community formed by people who have been liminal together in a rite of passage.
B) the community from which those undergoing a rite of passage are drawn.
C) the community members guiding initiates through a rite of passage.
D) the status hierarchy that is maintained by initiates during a rite of passage.
E) bonding between individuals who were previously strangers.

Question 73

The bond that emerges among people who have gone through a 'rite of passage' together is best termed:

A) commensality.
B) communitas.
C) community.
D) liminality.
E) triadic.

Question 74

People who go through a 'rite of passage' together are, in the middle of it:

A) all equals.
B) all individuals.
C) diverse.
D) bound to goof off.
E) No answer is correct.

Question 75

The 'transition' stage in a 'rite of passage' is also called:

A) the initiation process.
B) the liminal period.
C) the integration period.
D) the embodied period.
E) the exceptional stage.

Question 76

The 'liminal' period of the 'rite of passage' is best compared to

A) standing in a doorway, on the threshold.
B) being or feeling illuminated.
C) being born.
D) dying.
E) standing on a rooftop.

Question 77

The initiate in the middle of a 'rite of passage' is treated as or handled like:

A) an anomaly.
B) a child.
C) an adult.
D) a baby.
E) a priest.

Question 78

'Rites of passage' often begin with a symbolic:

A) birth.
B) puberty.
C) death.
D) marriage.
E) life.

Question 79

'Rites of passage' often end with a symbolic:

A) rebirth.
B) death.
C) puberty.
D) old age.
E) childhood.

Question 80

What characterizes male 'rites of passage' related to 'gender'?

A) Women make men.
B) Men make men.
C) Men make women.
D) Gender does not matter.
E) Women always officiate.