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Anthro Theory test 2
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Darwinian evolution | a theory that characterizes change in genetically or culturally transmitted traits as differential persistence of variability or descent with modification |
| selection | an evolutionary process by which traits that are conducive to survival in a particular environment are favored, while disadvantageous traits are selected against |
| replication error | an evolutionary process that may affect any heritable trait, in which a copying error causes an individual to exhibit a new trait, the appearance of which is independent of selection |
| flow or contact transmission | mixing of heritable traits when two populations of a species come into contact |
| drift | random (stochastic) change in the makeup of heritable traits in small populations |
| recombination | an evolutionary process by which new combinations of traits are produced by interchange among individuals in a population |
| materialism #2 | a focus on variability or population thinking in structuring data for explanation; contrasted with essentialism |
| biological evolution | the theory that organisms have their origin in other preexisting types, with the differences due to modification in successive generations |
| gradualism | an approach to biological evolutionary theory that sees evolutionary change as gradual, with the main mechanism being natural selection |
| grade | an evolutionary state that has been designated from a record of continuous change |
| punctuated equilibrium | an approach to biological evolutionary theory that sees evolutionary change as occurring in rapid bursts, characterized by species replacement or species selection and with long periods of stasis between punctuation events; chance is a main mechanism |
| clade | an evolutionary group which has departed from similar, related, groups by branching |
| adaptation | how a population functions within a particular environment; an adaptation is an outcome of evolutionary change |
| sociobiology | the theory that many aspects of human social behavior are genetically-based and subject to natural selection working on gene frequencies |
| E. O. Wilson | an ethologist whose research focuses on ants, author of Sociobiology: the New Synthesis (1975) |
| kin selection | the concept that organisms may enhance their inclusive genetic fitness by performing altruistic acts that favor their close biological relatives |
| altruism | behavior that benefits others while apparently being disadvantageous to the organism exhibiting it |
| evolutionary ecology/human behavioral ecology | a version of Darwinian theory applied to human cultural behavior, in which traits that affect reproductive fitness are the only ones of interest in explanation |
| optimal foraging theory | the idea within evolutionary ecology that, in matters of diet; foraging location, time, and group size; and settlement location, foragers choose prey in order to maximize the net rate of energy gain |
| dual inheritance theory | a Darwinian theory that holds that genes and culture are separate systems of inheritance and that cultural behavior is based on social learning and is subject to evolutionary processes such as selection, drift, and transmission errors |
| guided variation | during an individual’s lifetime, information learned via cultural transmission is combined with that learned individually, with the resultant behavior culturally transmitted to the next generation of learners |
| cultural transmission | an inheritance system that works by transmitting, through teaching and imitation, traits learned through individual learning, social learning, and guided variation |
| biased transmission | several kinds of rules that people apply in order to determine which cultural models to follow |
| evolutionary archaeology | the theory that applies Darwinian evolutionary theory to artifacts and the relationships among them as products of culture |
| Robert C. Dunnell | American archaeologist who is the main theoretician of evolutionary archaeology |
| style | attributes of artifacts that vary independently of environmental constraints and are not under selection |
| function | attributes of artifacts that are conditioned by the environment and that therefore can be shown to be under selection |
| group selection | the concept that the unit of selection can be a group of (non-kin) organisms rather than an individual |
| biological determinism | the belief that differences in behavior and capabilities between various groups of humans are biologically determined |
| historical particularism | a theory that views each culture as being a complex mix of traits that are the result of its individual history, including interactions with other cultures |
| inductive method | a method in which data are gathered before hypotheses are proposed, in the belief that the data will suggest the appropriate explanations |
| cultural determinism | the belief that human behavior in society is determined by the culture of the people, rather than by their biological makeup |
| the ethnographic present | an assumption made by some ethnographers that traditional cultures were unchanging or slow to change before contact, resulting in an ethnographic account of a culture which attempts to reconstruct the traditional behaviors and beliefs that existed before |
| participant observation | an important fieldwork method in socio-cultural anthropology, in which long-term firsthand fieldwork is undertaken with a cultural group |
| Franz Boas | an American anthropologist who was the primary theorist of historical particularism and proponent of improved data collection methods in ethnography |
| culture and personality | a school within historical particularism that focused on the relationship between individual psychology/personality and the person’s culture |
| Ruth Benedict | a student of Boas, influential in the culture and personality school of anthropology and known for her writings relating personality types to cultural patterns |
| Margaret Mead | a student of Boas, influential in the culture and personality school of anthropology and known for her writings on variability in personality and gender roles due to child-rearing and enculturation practices cross-culturally |
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