Anthropology 4616 Culture and Personality

Culture and Personality, Makeup Exam, page 1

Anthropology 4616 Culture and Personality

MakeupExam Fall 2006

17 October 2006

Answer FOUR (only 4) of the following questions. Keep in mind that there is more than one approach you can take in answering these questions. Each question is worth 4.0 points.

Follow these guidelines:

Organize your answer before you begin.

Be sure to state:

1. What or who something is

2. Where it occurred or is located (if appropriate)

3. Why it is important

3. When it occurred

State YOUR position or approach clearly.

Cite specific examples or references to support your statements.

Mention problem areas or other relevant materials which you would like to consider further in a more thorough statement.

Summarize your argument or discussion.

Wherever appropriate use materials from more than one region of the world.

Remember that each of your responses should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Note: Do not discuss any topic at length in more than one question.

Relate the study of any one topic so far considered in your Culture and Personality class to what you are currently studying, or what you studied spring semester 2006, in one or more of your other classes.

How does cognition affect our personality?

or What effect does it have on our personality?

or How does cognition influence/shape our personality?

Chapter One, “The Sociocultural Nature of Human Beings, discusses “How to Comprehend Behavior and Culture.” Discuss both the authors’ and your views on this topic, in the context of culture and personality studies.

Chapter One, “The Sociocultural Nature of Human Beings,” discusses “The Centrality of Learning.” Discuss the centrality of learning in the context of culture and personality studies.

Chapter Two, “Cross-Cultural Research: Scope and Methods,”outlines, obviously, the scope and methods of cross-cultural psychological anthropological and psychological research. Discuss the main features of Chapter Two as they apply to culture and personality studies in anthropology.

Chapter Three, “Human Development and Informal Education,” discusses ”The Developmental Niche.” What is “The Developmental Niche” and why is it important to Culture and Personality studies?

On Saturday, 14 October 2006, the Duluth Budgeteer ran an article discussing Duluth’s third annual Area 61 UFO Convention will be held Saturday, 21October 2006 (copy of article attached).]. “People are really experiencing something,” claims Dennis McKenna, a project leader for the Natural Health Product Research Group at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Based on your understanding of perception as discussed in class, what do you make of the claim that UFOs visit the Duluth area, and of the fact that “in ancient times people saw angels, spirits and demons”?

Do you feel that how other people perceive you as a "person" affects the way that you will behave--and thus your overall personality? Why or why not?

Chapter Four discusses APerceptual and Cognitive Processes.” In class we have been looking at perception and conception and how they relate to culture. Explain the cognitive processes of perception and conception and cite examples of how that affects language and/or culture in your personal life.

Why are people so against the possibility that Margaret Mead may have been wrong with her work on Samoa and Samoan sexual development?

Chapter Five discusses ”Alternative Views on Human Competence: General Intelligence and Genetic Epistemology.” What are the “Alternative Views” on general intelligence and its measurement?

In the BBC video Personality: All About Me they used shopping as part of an experimental control for the twins who took the BBC personality test in the a.m. and in the p.m. of the day of the experiment.
On Wednesday, 12 July 2006, The Minneapolis Star-Tribuneran an article “Not-so-simple choices: What does your shopping cart say about your values?” And what do your values say about your personality.

Some might suggest that what you have in your shopping cart might be a good indication, what anthropologists call an “unobtrusive” measure, of your personality. Anthropologists often use and talk about "unobtrusive measures."

Unobtrusive measures are ways of getting information just by looking around at things that you can see, without talking to anyone, interviewing anybody, or conducting an experiment or survey. Taking a photograph of a public event, for example, would be an unobtrusive measure. Myth analysis would be another example. An article in the Duluth News-Tribune, about the John Beargrease dogsled race, read "Dog Truckin': Handler's Vehicles Show Personality." That article suggested that you can tell a lot about the dog handler's personality by looking at her/his truck.

Can studying a person's vehicle or shopping cart be a valid unobtrusive measure of one's personality? How about studying the contents of one’s shopping cart?

From what you have learned so far in culture and personality analyze and evaluate the claims of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s “Not-so-simple choices”article, and discuss what your shopping cart says about your values and about your personality. And discuss using shopping as a variable in studying personality, as the BBC did in their video Personality: All About Me.

If you do not like these questions, make up and answer a question of your own choice relating to a topic having to do with culture and personality which you have not considered in your other answers. (If you think these questions are fantastic but simply prefer to make up one of your own, go ahead.) Answers should contain specific information supporting your position. Both your question and your answer will be evaluated.

If you elect to make up and answer a question, you may prepare your question and answer in advance and bring it with you to the exam.

If you prepare your question and answer in advance you only need to answer three midterm exam questions in class.

Identify four of the following in two or three sentences. Identify them in the context of Culture and Personality studies. Give at least one good example of each concept.

A.”Cultural specific definitions of intelligence”

B.sociobiology

C.inferential reasoning

D.projective tests

E.positions and roles

F.ideal culture

G."equivalence sorting"

H.”The Developmental Niche”

I.racial differences in intelligence

J."culturology"

A.displacement

A."savage passions"

B.canalization

C.national character

A.recapitulation theory

B.cultural ecology

A.cultural shock

A.postulates

Discuss the difference between reality and illusion in the context of our in-class discussions of cognition. Include in your discussion a hypothesis on how that relates to personality development in various cultures around the world.

What is "psychoanalytic anthropology?" Discuss its elements, its origins, and two or more of its foci.

The attached article, “Travails of a girl, who is told she is a boy,” appeared onThe Times of India WebPage, Wednesday, February 26, 2003. Dr. G. K. Vankar has found out that you are taking Psychological Anthropology and has hired you as a consultant to advise ARatna” and the medical team about what to do. There are over a dozen variables in this story that relate to items relevant to cross-cultural Psychological Anthropology studies.

A. What are the relevant variables?

B. What advice would you give?

C. Why do you give the advice you do?

Anthropologists talk about “modal personality,”“basic personality,” and Anational character.”

A. Compare and contrast these terms.

B. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using each of the three

terms?

A.imposed etic

B."psychic unity of mankind"

C.socialization

D.eidetic imagery

E.human nature

F.culturally constituted behavioral environment

G.real culture

H.the ecocultural framework

I.life history

J.Müller-Lyer illusion

K.normative orientation

A.Gestalt

B."progress"

C.BPS

D.carpentered-world hypothesis

E.perceptual world

F.Human Relations Area Files

G.affective behavior

H.child animism

I.range of variation

J."feminine"

Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as it relates to you (i.e., an English-speaking American); what does your language do to your personality?

Do apes have true language?

Describe how culture influences an individual's perception of reality using examples from the text, class discussion, films/videotapes, and your own experience.Compare the Nativism / Empiricism controversy in relation to cognition.

On Monday an article from the Washington Post, “Sixth sense: What Your Immune System Knows,” was passed out in class. Discuss the main points of this article and your opinion of them.

Over the past several years there has been much discussion about American Indian hunting and fishing rights in Wisconsin and Minnesota. There have also been problems at fishing locations in Wisconsin, and at hunting locations in Minnesota, and the issue has in the past divided voters on the Fond Du Lac Reservation.

Assume you are an applied anthropologist working for Governor Carlson, and that you are hired to do a Culture and Personality study on the situations described in the above paragraph in order to make recommendations to the Governor of Minnesota. Outline how you would approach the project, i.e., describe the methods you would use, the hypotheses or hypothesis you would test, and how you expect to report the results. (Keep in mind the Governor will want you to present him with three or four specific options for action that he might use in the future.) Finally, what results do you expect to find?

Note: Answer this question viewing it as a cultural / subcultural situation with a strong Culture and Personality component. Do not view it simply as a law enforcement problem. Look for solutions to the basic problems.

On page 20 of Psychological Anthropology Erika Bourguignon states, "the difference between psychological anthropology and other specialized divisions of our discipline [anthropology] is one of perspective, not, initially, one of data." Discuss that proposition, indicating as part of your discussion whether or not you agree with her. Be sure to give specific reasons why you do or do not agree with her.

Culture and Personality, Makeup Exam, page 1

Compare and contrast the "nativist" and the "empiricist" positions in Culture and Personality studies.

On pages 76 78 of Psychological Anthropology Erika Bourguignon states, "Even among those who have contributed greatly to the development of psychological anthropology, opposition between a relativist and a universalist view exists." Explain and discuss this quote.

Describe "cognitive anthropology or ethnoscience."

On the following page you will find the results of our exploratory testing of perceptions of TEENSPORTS using Susan Weller and A. Kimball Romney's "triadic comparisons" (from Systemataic Data Collection, Sage Publications, 1987) data collection technique.

These were then processed using Stephen P. Borgatti's ANTHROPOAC 4.0 (Analytic Technologies, 1993).

What you are looking at is a scattergram of the results of multidimensional scaling. (The results turned out to be so close that the names of the sports items didn't print well. Hence appears a second scattergram using only the numbers. The numbers of the sports items are listed below the second illustration.)

Question:

Part A.Interpret/analyze these results?

Part B.Explain this project to a friend of yours who is a sophomore thinking about majoring in anthropology. Your friend knows almost nothing about Culture and Personality, and very little about social science methods.

On Friday, 21 January 1994, the management of the Black Bear Casino laid off about 60 employees. About 20 of the laid off employees were members of the Fond du Lac band of Chippewa. The Black Bear is a casino on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation, owned and operated by and for the enrolled members of the Fond du Lac Band. There has been much discussion about the layoffs, both privately, and in the Duluth/Superior news media. On Thursday, 27 January 1994, a UMD student and Fond du Lac Band member organized and led a protest picket at the Black Bear Casino near Carlton.

Layoffs were decided using a point system. A worker was docked five points for missing work without calling, four points for unexcused absences, three points for being late or for an undocumented illness, two points for other reasons, and one point for a documented illness. and so on. Reservation chairperson, Bob "Sonny" Peacock, said that the layoffs were based solely on records, not race. "The bottom line is that this is a business," he said. "You go with the good, solid workers."

Culture and Personality, Makeup Exam, page 1

Many from Fond du Lac protest the layoffs, indicating that those Indian peoples most traditional were most penalized by the point system, and therefore the tribe actually laid off its own people disproportionately. Others argued that the whites should have been laid off, without regard to any point system, voicing the feeling that "since it is our casino, why let white people decide who gets to work?"

The former Executive Director of the Fond du Lac Reservation is a highly respected member of the Band, and a UMD graduate in Anthropology. Knowing you are talking this course in Culture and Personality, he hires you to assist in resolving this conflict situation. It is your first big assignment as an anthropologist.

Explain how you would go about the task?

At least part of what you need to do is a Culture and Personality study on the situations described in the above paragraphs in order to make recommendations to a joint commission of the Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee and the Governor's Human Rights Committee. Outline how you would approach the project, i.e., describe the methods you would use, the hypotheses or hypothesis you would test, and how you expect to report the results. (Keep in mind the joint commission will want you to present it with three or four specific options for action that he might use in the future.) Finally, what results do you expect to find?

Yesterday, Thursday, 26 January 1995, National Public Radio announced that scientists at Penn State University have identified male/female biological differences in the functioning of the human brain. While many (most?) of the organic workings of male and female brains were "the same," there were reportedly significant differences in the way males and females process motion. Assume this report is correct. What, if any, difference will that major discovery be to studies of Culture and Personality?

Thursday, 26 January 1995, the following piece appeared in the Duluth News-Tribune (p. 10B):

Want to sell? Pick Right Colors

NEW YORK -- Color matters to retailers.

Most prefer the bottom line to be black. And a store's color palette could paint a message that consumers can't ignore, a visual designer says.

A green store environment calms shoppers down so much that they're too relaxed to reach for their wallets. Too much red and it's fisticuffs over the last sweater on the bargain table.

Pink gives shoppers that loving feeling. Yellow and orange signal affordability. Dark green, navy blue and burgundy convey the opposite.

Stores need to get their colors "done," just as some women consult specialists to learn which colors look best on them, designer Linda Cahan told 150 retailers last week at the National Retail Federation's convention.

Colors used in signs, window designs and merchandise send strong signals to customers, signals that resonate right down to their chakras -- energy centers in the body, according to Asian though -- said the Connecticut consultant.

Culture and Personality, Makeup Exam, page 1

Analyze this article from the point of view of Culture and Personality studies.

Why is evil taken so seriously in Christianity, as if as important as goodness? Is it to explain the bad things in peoples' lives, or does it lie within the Christian's mind as an explanation to the temptation to so-called "bad" things?

What is the importance of make-believe in society and do you believe that your own experience with make-believe has or will help you in your own lifetime? [If so, how?]

Define perception and describe the steps involved in the formation of a percept.

Professor Roufs has said that one can not think without the use of language. Alvarez says one can think without using language. Who is right and why?

On page 187 of the text the authors state: "A goal of everyday-cognition studies is to maximize cultural validity; to achieve this, some experimental control may be lost. And, experimental methods must be combined with natural observation in particular cultural milieus. What makes the research cross-cultural is more the method used than the place where the research is carried on." Discuss this quote.

In class we were asked to smell the room and describe what we smelt. Why couldn't we (students) describe what we smelt, and why couldn't we smell very much? If we grew up in another culture could we have smelled more?

In Chapter Six,"Everyday Cognition," three different learning processes were discussed. Describe these three processes and discuss their implications for Culture and Personality.

Why is it that some cultures only see two colors and others, such as ours, see many.

Anthropologists sometimes talk about "unobtrusive measures." Unobtrusive measures are ways of getting information just by looking around at things that you can see, without talking to anyone, interviewing anybody, or conducting an experiment or survey. Taking a photograph of a public event, for example, would be an unobtrusive measure. Myth analysis would be another example. A headline in the 23 January 1996 Duluth News-Tribune, about the John Beargrease dogsled race, reads "Dog Truckin': Handler's Vehicles Show Personality." The article suggests that you can tell a lot about the dog handler's personality by looking at her/his truck. Can studying a person's vehicle be a valid unobtrusive measure of one's personality?

An article in the 23 January 1996 The New York Times (pp. B5, B10) reports that humans have two brains, one in the gut and one in the head. "The gut has a mind of its own, the enteric nervous system. Just like the larger brain in the head, researchers say, this system sends and receives impulses, records experiences and responds to emotions. Its nerve cells are bathed and influenced the same neurotransmitters. The gut can upset the brain just as the brain can upset the gut." They continue, "The 'brain in the gut' takes the form of two networks of neural connections in the lining of the gastrointestinal tract . . . . The nerves are highly interconnected and have direct influence on things like the speed of digestion, the movement and secretions of the . . . intestines and the contractions of the different kinds of muscle in the gut wall." The "gut brain" also gives you the commonly known "gut feelings." The two brains are interconnected; when one gets upset, the other does, too. Researchers note, "The brain in the gut plays a major role in human happiness and misery." They also note, "The human gut has long been seen as a repository of good and bad feelings." In sum, the gut is not something wired directly to the brain in the skull, as has been thought in the past; the gut has a brain of its own.

What will the discovery that we have two brains likely have on Culture and Personality studies?