Exam 1 Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is Polytheism?
The belief in multiple gods.
What is Monotheism?
The belief in a single god.
What is Cultural Relativism?
The principle that an individual’s beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of their own culture.
What does Nomothetic refer to?
The study of groups of people using generalizations rather than specific characteristics.
What is Anthropometrics/Social Darwinism?
The use of measurements of the human body to make social or racial classifications; often linked to 19th-century beliefs in racial superiority.
What is Ethnology?
The comparative study of different cultures.
What is the Comparative Method?
The practice of comparing cultures to understand general human patterns.
What is Historical Particularism?
The idea that each culture is a product of its unique history rather than general evolutionary stages.
What is Participant Observation?
A key anthropological research method where the researcher actively engages in the daily life of the studied group.
What is Ethnography?
A research method and branch of anthropology that involves studying people in their own environment.
What is Mechanical Solidarity?
A concept that describes how people in a society are united by shared beliefs, values, and lifestyles. It’s often found in traditional, small-scale societies, such as tribes and religious communities.
What is Organic Solidarity?
Social cohesion based on interdependence, common in complex societies.
What is Functionalism?
The theory that social institutions exist to fulfill needs and maintain societal stability.
What is Unilineal Evolution?
The belief that societies progress through a fixed sequence of stages (Savagery → Barbarism → Civilization).
What is Social Structure?
The patterned relationships and institutions that make up a society.
What is Animism?
The belief that natural objects, animals, and phenomena possess a spiritual essence.
What is Dynamic Continuity?
The idea that cultures change while maintaining core structures over time.
What is the difference between Synchronic and Diachronic studies?
Synchronic studies focus on a culture at a single point in time, while diachronic studies look at cultural change over time.
What is Pastoralism?
A subsistence strategy based on the domestication and herding of animals.
What is Patrilineal Descent?
A kinship system in which lineage is traced through the father’s side.
What is the Culture and Personality School?
An anthropological approach that examines the relationship between culture and individual personality.
What are National Character Studies?
Studies that attempt to define the collective personality of a nation.
What is Cultural Materialism?
The theory that material conditions, including technology and environment, determine social structures and ideologies.
What is Probabilistic Infrastructural Determinism?
The idea that cultural practices develop based on material and environmental conditions but are not rigidly determined by them.
