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Q:
Which of the following statements about religion is NOT true?
A. It is a cultural construction, therefore not a reality.
B. It can both create and maintain divisions within society.
C. It is sometimes a source of conflict.
D. It is, in some cases, ecologically adaptive.
E. It can both create and maintain social solidarity.
Q:
Which of the following statements about religion is NOT true?
A. The functions of religious beliefs and practices vary with the society.
B. Religion is often an instrument of societal change, even revolution.
C. Religion serves only to maintain social solidarity; it does not create or maintain societal divisions.
D. Political leaders never mix religion with politics.
E. Religious beliefs can help regulate the economy.
Q:
Émile Durkheim, an early scholar of religion, stressed what he termed religious effervescence. Anthropologists too have stressed the collective, social, shared, and enacted nature of religion, the emotions it generates, and the meanings it embodies.
Q:
Evangelical Protestantism is experiencing rapid growth in all of the following regions EXCEPT
A. the Middle East and North Africa.
B. sub-Saharan Africa.
C. Europe.
D. Latin America.
E. Brazil.
Q:
Which of the following is NOT a problem with defining religion?
A. There are both sacred and secular rituals.
B. Distinctions between supernatural and natural are not consistently made in a society, making it difficult to tell what is a religion and what isn't.
C. Behaviors considered appropriate for religious occasions vary between cultures.
D. Only one religion can be considered true, so all others must be classified as myth.
E. Defining religion with reference to supernatural powers makes it difficult to classify ritual-like behavior in secular contexts.
Q:
Like ethnicity and language, religion is associated with social divisions within and between societies and nations.
Q:
According to Edward Tylor, religion evolved from polytheism to animism to monotheism.
Q:
In Melanesia, mana is an essential sacred life force that resides in people, animals, plants, and objects.
Q:
According to Bronislaw Malinowski, religion provides people with emotional comfort during problematic times.
Q:
Ironically, religious fundamentalism is a very modern phenomenon. Why is this an irony? How does learning about the concept of modernism in the context of a chapter on anthropology and religion alter, if at all, the way you understand world events today?
Q:
Which of the following kinds of religion involves part-time religious specialists in foraging societies?
A. communal religion
B. shamanistic religion
C. Olympian religion
D. individualistic cults
E. idiosyncratic belief systems
Q:
Which of the following kinds of religion involves full-time religious specialists?
A. communal religion
B. shamanistic religion
C. Olympian religion
D. individualistic cults
E. idiosyncratic belief systems
Q:
Marvin Harris's studies (1974, 1978) of how beliefs and rituals may function as part of a group's cultural adaptation to its environment are an illustration of
A. how religion can play a prominent role in cultural ecology.
B. the dangers that religious effervescence can pose to the environment if it is not contained.
C. how nonhuman primates also have a capacity for religion, although it is very limited.
D. the dangers of extending the realm of religion to nature.
E. the fact that religion is evolutionarily adaptive.
Q:
Which of the following is NOT a reason that the Indian sacred cow is adaptive, according to Harris's studies?
A. Zebu cattle require less food per animal than do beef cattle.
B. Wandering cattle indirectly provide fertilizer for agricultural fields.
C. Zebu cattle are frequently slaughtered and their meat distributed on ceremonial occasions.
D. Cattle dung provides a cheap source of heating and cooking energy.
E. Cattle are an affordable form of power for peasant farmers.
Q:
Which of the following tend to be directed at socially marginal individuals as a method of social control?
A. blood feuds
B. Olympian religions
C. rites of passage
D. cargo cults
E. witchcraft accusations
Q:
A "world-rejecting religion" is one that
A. concerns itself with a higher realm of spirituality.
B. rejects worldly goods and popular culture.
C. is polytheistic or monotheistic, and is led by a shaman.
D. has been rejected by the world.
E. focuses on a higher realm of reality.
Q:
What term refers to the manipulation of the supernatural to accomplish specific goals?
A. animism
B. magic
C. religion
D. a rite of passage
E. pantheism
Q:
________ magic is based on the belief that whatever is done to an object will affect a person who once had contact with it.
A. Contagious
B. Imitative
C. Serial
D. Sequential
E. Simultaneous
Q:
Religion and magic don't just explain things and help people accomplish goalsthey also enter the realm of human feelings. In other words,
A. they serve emotional needs as well as cognitive (i.e., explanatory) ones.
B. religion helps reduce differences by promoting brotherly love.
C. they determine the emotional well-being of all their practitioners.
D. they often lead to extreme psychological disruption and even mental illness.
E. they are psychologically and cognitively relevant, but these realms are well contained and have no effect beyond the mental well-being of the practitioner.
Q:
Bronislaw Malinowski found that the Trobriand Islanders used magic when sailing, a hazardous activity. He proposed that
A. people turn to magic to instill psychological stress on their competitors, especially when the fish supply is very low.
B. magic actually reduced the fishing success of the Trobriand Islanders, but at least they did not feel directly responsible, since then they could blame it on bad luck.
C. magic was a surprisingly effective stand-in for proper fishing skills and experience, because it made people confident in their capabilities.
D. because people can't control matters such as wind, weather, and the fish supply, they turn to magic.
E. magic emboldened people to take more risks.
Q:
Which of the following is true about rites of passage?
A. Beliefs and rituals can, ironically, both diminish and create anxiety and a sense of insecurity and danger.
B. Despite their prevalence during the time that Victor Turner did his research, rites of passage have disappeared with the advent of modern life.
C. Participants in rites of passage only are tricked into believing that there was a big change in their lives.
D. Rites of passage only worsen the anxieties caused by other aspects of religion.
E. Rites of passage would be effective in diminishing anxiety and fear if they did not involve the liminal phase.
Q:
Which of the following is NOT among contemporary rites of passage?
A. initiation
B. fasting
C. baptism
D. marriage
E. bat mitzvah
Q:
According to Victor Turner, all rites of passage have three phases: separation, liminality, and incorporation. Of these three, the liminal phasewhich is the most interestingis typically characterized by
A. intensification of the social hierarchy.
B. a forming of an implicit ranking system.
C. the use of secular language.
D. symbolic reversals of ordinary behavior.
E. no change in the social norms.
Q:
What are both induction into the U.S. Marine Corps and the vision quest of certain North American Indian societies examples of?
A. binary opposition
B. a generalized exchange
C. a structural analysis of religion
D. rites of passage
E. genetic programming
Q:
What is the term for the marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage?
A. voodoo
B. mana
C. taboo
D. liminality
E. animism
Q:
What is communitas?
A. a social inequality that is accepted even by those who are less privileged
B. a collective liminality
C. anxiety
D. the Latin word for mana
E. the supernatural
Q:
Rituals serve the social function of creating temporary or permanent solidarity among peopleforming a social community. We see this also in practices known as
A. mana.
B. liminality.
C. animism.
D. totemism.
E. fundamentalism.
Q:
Totemism, one form of cosmology, is
A. a system, in this case a religious one, for imagining and understanding the universe.
B. Claude Lvi-Strauss's term to describe the binary oppositions prevalent in religious myths all over the world.
C. a synonym for folklore.
D. the etic explanation of people's view on human agency.
E. the emic concept of spirituality.
Q:
Contrast ritual behavior with ordinary behavior. Give examples of religious and secular rituals. What are the main differences between such kinds of rituals?
Q:
Much religious and ritual behavior is adaptive. Can you think of cases in which it is not? What does it mean for religion to be maladaptive?
Q:
What are the similarities and differences between religions of foraging societies and those of nation-states? How do these compare with Olympian religions and monotheism? What kinds of general evolutionary trends are discernible in religious worship?
Q:
Discuss two cases illustrating religion's role in social change.
Q:
Is religion declining or becoming increasingly important in contemporary society? Why? If you believe that religion is declining, what is replacing it?
Q:
Like ethnicity and language, religion also is
A. a social fiction.
B. a topic of research that distinguishes anthropology from other disciplines.
C. a phenomenon that illustrates the power of biology over culture.
D. a cultural generality.
E. associated with social divisions within and between societies and nations.
Q:
Who the mentioned in the text as a founder of the anthropology of religion?
A. Margaret Mead
B. Claude Lvi-Strauss
C. Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
D. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor
E. Bronislaw Malinowski
Q:
Animism, polytheism, and monotheism are the
A. three kinds of religion that exist in the world today.
B. stages of ritual, according to Victor Turner.
C. stages, according to Edward Tylor, through which religion evolved.
D. stages through which all present-day religions have passed.
E. names for the three psychological needs that all individuals have, thus explaining the universality of religion.
Q:
What kind of religion is based on the idea that each human has a double that is active during sleep?
A. animatism
B. totemism
C. animism
D. mana
E. polytheism
Q:
Besides animismand sometimes coexisting with it in the same societythere is a view of the supernatural as a domain of raw impersonal power, or force, that people can control under certain conditions. This conception of the supernatural is particularly prominent in Melanesia. Melanesians refer to this force as
A. taboo.
B. magic.
C. good (or bad) luck.
D. The Force.
E. mana.
Q:
To Kottak, the widespread U.S. belief that recreation and religion are separate domains is both ethnocentric and false. Further, it may be taking the "fun" out of religion.
Q:
Like Catholicism, Pentecostalism is egalitarian, and adherents need no special education to preach or run a church.
Q:
Behaviors associated with sports fandom could be considered secular rituals.
Q:
How do you explain the universality of religion?
Q:
On the basis of theories about the origins and functions of religion, what are the functions that organized religion serves in U.S. society? Can religion in the United States be described as embedded in other sociocultural institutions, such as politics? If you have spent most of your life in a different country, feel free to write about religion in that country.
Q:
The cargo cults of Melanesia functioned to integrate Melanesians and set the stage for the formation of political parties and economic interest groups.
Q:
Religious fundamentalism is as old as religion itself.
Q:
Antimodernism is a rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, purer, better way of life.
Q:
Fundamentalists are not among those who feel alienated from the perceived secularism of modern culture.
Q:
This chapter includes several examples linking marriage practices with issues about property and inheritance. Describe these examples. Based on what you have learned so far about marriage, kinship, adaptive strategies, and political systems, can you suggest ways in which anthropologists could help explain relationships involving property?
Q:
In almost all cases of marriage in nonindustrial societies, some kind of preexisting social relationship between any two individuals helps determine whether they may marry.
Q:
Although briefly popular after its introduction, online dating never became a significant part of the marriage market.
Q:
How would you explain the near universality of the incest taboo? You may draw on one or more explanations.
Q:
Using what you know about cross-cultural comparisons of marital practices, discuss the following statement: Serial monogamy is the result of a cultural emphasis on individualism, whereas polygamy is the result of a cultural emphasis on social responsibility.
Q:
Does the practice of paying a dowry necessarily imply gender inequality?
Q:
Discuss some of the social functions of levirate and sororate marriage, and identify the sociocultural context of these customs.
Q:
What are some of the differences between endogamy and exogamy, and how absolute is the distinction implied by these terms? Use examples to illustrate your argument.
Q:
"A person can have multiple spouses without ever getting divorced." Using the concepts you have learned in this chapter, explain this seemingly contradictory statement.
Q:
In a study among the Hopi of northeastern Arizona, more than a third of the women of the community had been divorced at least once, which correlates with the fact that these women were socially and economically insecure.
Q:
Serial polygamy is the practice of having more than one wife, but never more than one at the same time.
Q:
Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, with the number of wives a man has serving as an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.
Q:
With polyandry, a woman takes more than one husband at one time.
Q:
In the caste system of India, failure to adhere to class endogamy rules traditionally resulted in a ritually impure union.
Q:
Royal endogamy among Hawaiians functioned to limit the number of conflicts about royal successionan explanation that serves as an example of the latent function of a social custom.
Q:
Same-sex marriages are not culturally viable institutions.
Q:
Dowries are most common in societies in which women occupy an elevated status position.
Q:
In tribal societies, unlike industrial ones, marriage entails only an agreement between the people getting married; descent groups play only a minor role.
Q:
If Hannah marries her deceased husband's brother, the arrangement is considered a levirate marriage.
Q:
Cross-culturally, divorce is known only in industrialized societies where a high percentage of women are gainfully employed.
Q:
A new view of early human origins suggests that the emergence of a pair bond between male and female would have allowed humans to recognize their relatives.
Q:
Cultures have different definitions and expectations of relationships that are biologically or genetically equivalent. In other words, kinship is socially constructed.
Q:
Exogamy is the practice of seeking out a mate within one's own social group.
Q:
The children of your father's sister are called your cross cousins.
Q:
Incest is a cultural universal that is defined the same way by all cultures.
Q:
Early anthropologists explained incest taboos as a reflection of "instinctive horror" of mating with close relatives. However, this explanation for incest taboos has been rejected because formal incest restrictions would be unnecessary if humans really do have an instinctive aversion to incest.
Q:
The biological degeneration explanation for the incest taboo has won over supporters because of universal concerns about biology.
Q:
One theory regarding the universality of the incest taboo argues that by forcing people to marry outside their immediate kin group, peaceful alliances between people would extend to include a greater number of individuals.
Q:
Homogamy is the practice of marrying within a culturally prescribed group to which one does not belong.
Q:
Polyandry is common and practiced under a wide range of conditions.
Q:
Native American berdaches were permitted to marry men.
Q:
Anthropologist Edmund Leach (1955) observed that, depending on the society, several different kinds of rights are allocated by marriage. According to Leach, marriage can but doesn't always accomplish each of the following EXCEPT
A. give either or both spouses a monopoly in the sexuality of the other.
B. give either or both spouses rights to the labor of the other.
C. give either or both spouses rights over the latent and manifest functions of the other.
D. give either or both spouses rights over the other's property.
E. establish a socially significant "relationship of affinity" between spouses and their relatives.
Q:
A cross-cultural study that systematically compared romantic love in many cultures found
A. that while people everywhere know what love is, they experience it differently.
B. evolutionary evidence for romantic love in all societies surveyed.
C. a rise in love matches over arranged marriages in industrialized societies, but the opposite trend in nonindustrialized societies.
D. a scholarly bias throughout the social sciences that views romantic love as a luxury in human life, especially in academia.
E. evidence that romantic love may be a universal, although romantic love and marriage do not necessarily go together.