Q&A Hero

Q: Large-scale cooperation can be maintained through a. punishment of free-riders. b. prosocial sentiments. c. enforcement of moral normal by third parties. d. All of the above.

Q: The Turkana a. practice farming. b. live in permanent settlements. c. frequently engage in warfare. d. have a hierarchical political system with a king.

Q: Which of the following best illustrates transhumant pastoralism? a. The male cattle pastoralists of East Africa have two settlements and move their herds between these, while the women stay in the permanent dwelling year-round. b. The Saami reindeer herders and their families move across the frozen landscape during the winter months and in the summer take jobs as day laborers. c. The Yarahmadzai of Iran move with the entire village during the year from settlement to settlement, never knowing where they will be next. d. The Quechua herd their alpacas from one pasture to another as needed, depending on the climate. They never move their residence. e. Central Asian yak herders all live in one settlement permanently year-round and supplement the food for their animals. They do not switch settlements seasonally.

Q: The Maasai have faced increasing difficulties practicing transhumant pastoralism primarily because: a. Global warming has made grasslands scarce. b. Government taxation policies have radically reduced the sizes of their herds. c. Men now have the choice of herding or working in the tourist industry and most frequently choose the later. d. Cattle diseases have made herding impossible in much of the land the Maasai inhabit. e. The required grazing land has been taken from them.

Q: Among the Maasai, pasture land is: a. Owned by individual families. b. Passed from mother's brother to sister's son. c. Rented from the neighboring Nuer. d. Owned collectively rather than individually. e. Far less important than garden land and, therefore, ecologically degraded.

Q: Members of the Franklin Expedition of 1846 a. perished because they were unable to figure out how to adapt to the arctic habitat. b. succeeded in surviving the harsh arctic conditions. c. had access to accumulated local knowledge. d. brought with them a diverse tool kit.

Q: Compared with genetic evolution, cultural evolution a. is slower. b. is faster because it can occur in individuals and be passed on. c. occurs at the same rate. d. is faster because it alters the underlying genes, which then quickly spread through the population.

Q: A critical form of cultural knowledge typically passed from fathers to elder sons in Maasai society is: a. Hunting techniques in a marginal environment. b. Environmental knowledge and how livestock is moved. c. Market trade and economic partners. d. Traditional healing techniques. e. Means of contacting the supernatural and asking for abundance.

Q: When chimpanzees are shown a specific behavior, they typically a. copy it faithfully. b. do not copy it. c. only copy the components that are relevant to achieving an outcome. d. copy only a few randomly chosen components.

Q: The major areas of pastoralism are found in: a. East Africa, the Australian desert, and the Canadian arctic. b. North America, the highlands of South America, and the Pacific Islands. c. East Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Subarctic. d. Eastern Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa. e. South American tropical forests, the Australian desert, and North Africa.

Q: Chimpanzees and capuchins likely lack complex cultural repertoires for the all the following reasons EXCEPT a. not all individuals copy behaviors accurately. b. individuals settle on only one technique once it is learned. c. individuals do not blindly copy all of the behavior's details. d. individuals are unable to imitate behaviors.

Q: In their adaptation to their harsh environment, the Australian aboriginals survived by: a. Expanding their population. b. Using a wide variety of food sources. c. Hunting big game animals. d. Practicing vegetarianism. e. Using effective rituals to increase their food supply.

Q: 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 then figuring out the rest on their own.

Q: A major characteristic of the environment which shapes aboriginal Australian survival is: a. The absence of plants. b. The generally benign climate. c. Climatic stability throughout the year. d. The shortage of water. e. The presence of big game animals.

Q: According to the authors of your textbook, a. human evolution is basically over because most of the evolution of human behavior and human societies is not driven by natural selection. b. human evolution 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 kya. d. natural selection is completely irrelevant to the study of human behavior and mate choice in modern societies.

Q: The peoples of the Great Sandy Desert in Australia traditionally made a living by: a. Pastoralism. b. Foraging. c. Horticulture. d. Agriculture. e. Market trade.

Q: 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.

Q: Under most conditions, foraging requires: a. Strong, capable leadership. b. Complex and sophisticated tools. c. Clear and enforceable ideas about land ownership. d. The presence of nearby agricultural people. e. Independence and mobility.

Q: 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.

Q: For the Gwich"in, the most important result of climate change has been: a. The increased presence of outside industries that have negative impacts on local culture. b. The need to find more sophisticated ways of keeping warm as their area cools. c. Increased contact with outsiders and increasing ability to sell furs and native crafts. d. The decrease in size and health of the caribou herd on which they depend. e. Increased ability to use snowmobiles to hunt caribou and fur bearing mammals.

Q: 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.

Q: Sea ice is critical to the Inuit because: a. It allows animal herds to migrate from one area to another. b. It connects different Inuit communities. c. It is used as a highway and as a building material. d. It is their only supply of fresh water. e. It allows supply planes to land, bringing needed food and equipment as well as tourists.

Q: One of the major changes that the 20th century brought to the Inuit was: a. Opportunities to enter the commercial fur trade and government employment. b. Almost complete extinction in the inland hunting grounds, forcing Inuit to live on the seacoast. c. Persecution by the government, leading to a reduction in Inuit numbers by more than 75 percent. d. Schooling opportunities that led most Inuit to migrate to more temperate climates. e. Almost complete extinction in native fisheries, forcing Inuit to move away from the coastline.

Q: The mismatch hypothesis holds that the psychological machinery that supports human cooperation evolved ina. agricultural societies. b. industrial societies. c. small hunter-gatherer societies.d. pastoralist societies.

Q: Which of the following terms indicates the yield per person per hour of labor invested? a. Efficiency. b. Productivity. c. Population density. d. Industrialism. e. Labor.

Q: A study on capuchins showed that they learn to forage Luhea fruit througha. observation and trial and error. b. trial and error. c. observation aloned. genetic adaptation

Q: Most mammals and birds attain appropriate behaviors matched to their environment through a. personal experience alone. b. information passed on from other individuals alone. c. information encoded in their genes alone. d. a combination of innate, genetic behaviors and personal experience.

Q: Historically, the greatest source of environmental degradation has been: a. Slash and burn farming practiced by traditional peoples. b. Consumer desires and energy needs in wealthy nations. c. Slash and burn farming practiced by modern peasants. d. Traditional agriculture done without soil erosion control techniques. e. Collection and burning of wood for cooking fires in large cities in poor nations.

Q: In the United States today, what percentage of the population currently is involved in agricultural production? a. 0.5%. b. 1.0%. c. 2.5%. d. 4.0%. e. 12%.

Q: Unlike other cooperative mammal species, humans a. cooperate only with their relatives. b. cooperate with large numbers of unrelated individuals. c. rarely cooperate. d. cooperate only under the supervision of government institutions.

Q: 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. Anthropologists can"t really address the question of adaptiveness of cultural behaviors

Q: As the Kayapo of the Xingu River Basin in South America demonstrate, people in non-industrial societies: a. Do not understand their environment. b. Have very simple methods for managing their resources. c. Would be better off with modern technology. d. Are committed to becoming modernized e. Have adapted to their environments without the use of modern science.

Q: 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 facilitationd. Imitation

Q: The earliest human food-getting strategy was: a. Horticulture. b. Industrialism. c. Foraging. d. Pastoralism. e. Fishing.

Q: 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 facilitationd. Imitation

Q: The Central Inuit, who inhabited the Canadian Arctic, made a living bya. hunting and fishing. b. foraging for nuts and fruit. c. farming.d. raising cattle.

Q: Ecological anthropologists are most interested in: a. Interactions between humans and their environments. b. Controlling human population growth. c. Protecting the natural environment. d. Increasing the world's food supply. e. Assessing the effectiveness of different methods of making a living.

Q: "The dog food under the table he fed" has what kind of error? a. Lexicon. b. Semantics. c. Morphemes. d. Phonemes. e. Syntax.

Q: According to your text, humans owe much of their success to all the following EXCEPTa. culture. b. intelligence. c. individuality.d. cooperation.

Q: Most cultural traditions in nonhuman primates can be accounted for bya. social facilitation. b. noncultural factors. c. genetic differences.d. the environment.

Q: The English word "cats" has how many morphemes? a. 4 morphemes: c-a-t-s. b. 2 morphemes: cat-s. c. No morphemes. d. 1 morpheme: cat. e. 3 morphemes: ca-t-s.

Q: Bound morphemes differ from free morphemes in which of the following ways? a. The former have strictly one meaning, the latter have more than one meaning. b. The former occur either in nouns or in verbs but never in both, while the latter may occur in both. c. The former never stand alone as complete words; the latter do. d. The former can be pronounced only one way, while the latter may have more than one pronunciation. e. The former exist in all human languages; the latter exist in English only.

Q: 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

Q: 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.

Q: In linguistic studies, phonemes are: a. Used to call other linguists. b. The set of all possible sounds that humans can make. c. The set of sounds used in any particular language. d. Never used to make words. e. The same in every language.

Q: In English, bit and pit have different meanings. Thus, /b/ and /p/ are: a. Words. b. Sounds. c. Morphemes. d. Structures. e. Phonemes.

Q: The International Phonetic Alphabet is a means of: a. Writing all of the sounds of all human languages. b. Teaching children to read at very early ages. c. Communicating between people who speak different languages. d. Translating easily among European languages. e. Preserving languages threatened with extinction.

Q: Social facilitation a. allows for the development of cumulative culture because individuals from every generation learn each behavioral variant on their own. b. allows behavioral variants to be copied and changed by succeeding generations. c. results in very complex behaviors, skills, belief systems, and bodies of knowledge for nonhuman primates. d. occurs because individuals are in situations that allow them to experiment and solve similar problems in the same way.

Q: Which of the following is not a subsystem of language? a. Symbology. b. Phonology. c. Morphology. d. Syntax. e. Semantics.

Q: 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.

Q: Culture a. is common in other primates. b. occurs only in humans. c. is common in other primates, but cumulative cultural change is rare in other animals. d. is common in other primates, and is also cumulative, just as in humans.

Q: When anthropologists examine language across different cultures, they find that: a. Children learn to speak very early when the culture has written language. b. Children learn to speak early when mothers and babies interact a lot. c. Children speak in the same way in all cultures regardless of different languages. d. Children learn to speak at the same time in all cultures and with equal competence. e. Children raised with their mothers speak better than children raised with other relatives.

Q: 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.

Q: Many linguists argue that there is a universal grammar. This is: a. A set of words that means the same thing in every language. b. A set of principles, conditions, and rules that underlie all languages. c. A single word order in which different parts of speech must appear in all languages. d. A simple way of speaking that can be understood by everyone all over the world. e. An alphabet in which all languages and the sounds that make them up can be written.

Q: Kipsigis women who reach menarche early a. have longer reproductive life spans. b. have decreased fertility. c. have lower offspring survivorship. d. increase their chances of having pregnancies end in spontaneous abortions.

Q: Kipsigis men may assess the reproductive potential of prospective brides by a. counting the number of previous sexual partners of the woman. b. calculating their age at menarche. c. their weight. d. their height.

Q: Which of the following statements is incorrect? a. Human speech must be learned through a speech community. b. There is a critical period in which language acquisition must occur in humans. c. Children raised in isolation are never able to fully overcome this language disability. d. Children begin experimenting with actual language sounds by the age of 6 months. e. There is some limited biological basis for learning one language over another.

Q: Studies of the ways in which children learn language show that: a. A language must be consciously taught; otherwise a child will not learn it. b. Children in different societies learn to speak their native languages at different ages because some languages are harder to learn than others. c. Formal education is required for a child to learn to speak his or her native language grammatically. d. Human beings have an inborn predisposition for learning language and will speak grammatically even if not taught to do so. e. Boys learn to speak much earlier than girls.

Q: Menarche refers to a. societies controlled by men. b. societies where men essentially purchase wives by paying a bride price. c. the time of a woman's first menstruation. d. the time of a woman's first coitus.

Q: When researchers tried to teach human language to chimpanzees and gorillas, they found that: a. These animals were incapable of using language in ways that resembled those used by human beings. b. While these animals were able to master the use of verbs, they were unable to produce new words. c. There was very little difference between the linguistic capacities of humans and our nearest primate relations. d. Language skills were never masterfully demonstrated in the chimpanzees or gorillas. e. Language soon became as essential to the trained chimpanzees and gorillas as it is to humans.

Q: Women who fetched the highest bridewealth payments among the Kipsigis were those a. with the richest fathers. b. with the poorest fathers. c. who experienced menarche at a later age. d. who experienced menarche at an earlier age.

Q: Human children appear to be programmed to learn language instinctively before the age of: a. 6 months. b. 3 years. c. 6 years. d. 12 years. e. 21 years.

Q: Kipsigis bridewealth is associated with a. polyandry. b. competition over the most eligible women. c. marriage decisions made by brides and grooms. d. periods of food shortage.

Q: When learning language, the human instinct is to: a. Learn the language your father speaks. b. Learn the language your mother speaks. c. Learn the language of the group in which you are socialized. d. Humans do not have an instinct to learn language. e. Learn as many languages as possible.

Q: The Kipsigis are a. polygynous pastoralists who require bridewealth payments upon marriage. b. polyandrous pastoralists who require groomwealth payments upon marriage. c. monogamous pastoralists who require both bridewealth and groomwealth payments upon marriage. d. monogamous pastoralists who require only a bridewealth payment upon marriage.

Q: Charles Hockett argues that the following two steps were critical in the evolution of human language: a. Productivity and displacement. b. Displacement and blending. c. Blending and dual structure. d. Blending and duality of patterning. e. Duality of pattern and productivity.

Q: Human speech is infinitely productive. This means that: a. Humans can combine words into new, meaningful utterances that they have never heard before. b. Human beings never become tired of talking. c. The more human beings talk, the more productive they are economically. d. Every normal adult can produce an infinite number of sounds. e. Human speech is always directed toward some productive purpose.

Q: Bridewealth among the Kipsigis a. is tendered in cattle. b. compensates the bride's family for the cost of her move. c. gives the groom rights to her labor and the children she bears during her marriage. d. is higher for higher-status families.

Q: When we say that human language is "conventional," we mean that: a. Humans are very conservative and rarely change their way of speaking. b. The words in human languages have no inherent relationship to the things they stand for. c. All languages follow the same grammatical rules or conventions. d. Human language was invented at a convention. e. All human languages have basically the same structure and differences among them are only superficial.

Q: Bridewealth is a. the monetary worth of a bride. b. the reproductive value of a bride. c. the wealth of a bride immediately after marriage. d. a payment to the bride's family at the time of marriage.

Q: Which of the following is the best predictor of mate preferences?a. Sex b. Age c. Political viewsd. Culture

Q: A linguistic capacity to describe things that are not present is called: a. Conventionality. b. Displacement. c. Productivity. d. Openness. e. Communication.

Q: Although men typically prefer a larger number of sexual partners than women do, a. men are less open to mating opportunities that do not involve long-term commitments. b. this result is not found in all cultures. c. in some cultures men and women differed more greatly than in others. d. men prefer women who are older than they are.

Q: Animal forms of verbal communication are called: a. Response systems. b. Animal vocal communication systems. c. Call systems. d. Stimulus-generated systems. e. Stimulus-response systems.

Q: When individuals first meet someone they are attracted to, women are more likely than men to a. be cautious about their partner's intentions. b. make more false-positive errors. c. overestimate men's commitment. d. minimize the chance of missing sexual opportunities.

Q: Describe the goals of U.S. English, Inc.

Q: A woman's ________ peaks in her twenties and then steadily declines until she reaches menopause, when it drops to zero.a. fertility b. sexuality c. reproductive valued. fecundity

Q: Chastity was a. an important mate quality in Sweden but not China. b. an important mate quality in China but not Sweden. c. important in both China and Sweden. d. unimportant in both Sweden and China.

Q: Generally, Buss's cross-cultural data show thata. females value mutual love and attraction in a mate more than males do.b. males and females differ in their mate preferences in ways predicted by evolutionary theory.c. gender has a stronger influence on mate preference than culture.d. chastity is a high-ranking trait for males and females.

Q: Some global forces do not lead toward linguistic homogenization. What two factors today do not show linguistic homogenization?