Chapter 2
Culture and Nature
Learning Objectives
After studying the chapter, students should be able to:
1)Explain why understanding the purpose of the human psyche will help us understand human behavior.
2)Describe how humans are impacted by both nature and culture.
3)Define and explain natural selection, including the two criteria of natural selection (staying alive and reproduction), how they work and their relative importance.
4)Be able to describe the different reproductive strategies of men and women.
5)Contrast the 4 different ways of understanding culture and its influence: culture as shared ideas, culture as system, culture as praxis, meaningful information shared in a culture.
6)Be able to describe how shared ideas, specifically laws, have their influence.
7)Explain why the question of whether people are the same everywhere is an issue for social psychologists. Describe how people are the same and different across cultures.
8)Contrast definition of humans as social animals and as cultural animals.
9)Explain the social brain theory.
10)Describe the main advantages of culture.
11)Describe the various perspectives on the relationship of the individual and society.
12)Explain how vegetarians show the impact of culture on human behavior.
13)Explain how human sexual practices show the impact of culture on human behavior.
14)Describe what is meant by the phrase ‘bad is stronger than good’ and its relation to nature and culture.
15)Describe the origin and subject matter of positive psychology.
16)Define and explain tradeoffs.
17)Describe how nature and culture differ in tradeoffs involving time.
18)Describe tradeoffs that appear in the political realm.
19)Define and explain the duplex mind, including the differences between the two systems.
20)Explain how the conscious and the automatic system work together.
21)Describe why conscious override is important for culture.
22)Describe the advantages and demands of living in culture.
23)Explain the idea that inner processes serve interpersonal functions.
24)Describe how the automatic system and conscious system and impulses and culture are related.
25)Explain the relationship of selfishness, natural selection, and culture.
26)Describe how our perceptual systems are focused on correct perceptions (rather than detection) and on other human beings (rather than other species).
27)Explain how putting people first is shown with food and in Asch’s line judgment experiment.
28)Describe how being a cultural animal provides humans with an identity distinct from non-human animals.
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