Challenge and Change

… is shaped by cultural and biological factors

Introduction to Anthropology

— The word is derived from the greek words anthrōpos (human being) and logia (the study of)

— It’s the study of human beings around the world, throughout history, and across cultures and social organizations.

— Marco Polo is sometimes thought to be the father of Anthropology because of his accounts of the cultures he encountered on his 24-year journey that took him from Italy through central and east Asia and back again.

Culture in Anthropology:

1. The evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively

2. The distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their experiences and acted creatively

Cultural Anthropology (Branch of Anthropology)

… is concerned with understanding the variations of knowledge, morals, laws, religious beliefs, customs, and habits that occur within different societies of human beings

— Many people working in the field of Cultural Anthropology will spend significant amounts of time living among other cultures to obtain the best possible grasp of how people live and interact. This is called Participant Observation. (Ex: Margaret Mead)

Physical/Biological Anthropology (Branch of Anthropology)

… the most scientific of the Anthropology’s subdivisions

Australopithecus - Ex: Lucy (3.2 million years old, discovered 1974, Australopithecus Afarensis), Ardi (4.4 million years old, discovered 1994, Ardipithecus Ramidus)

Linguistic Anthropology (Branch of Anthropology)

… investigates how language shapes culture and vice-versa by determining how it affects communication, how it can shape identity, and how it can affect socialization and the development of ideologies.

— many languages that had existed and developed over centuries began to fade from use. Linguistic Anthropology began to document these endangered languages before they disappeared completely.

Pidgins — A simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is never a native language, always a second, and historically pidgins have developed as a means for allowing two groups to trade

Creoles — A stable, natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they are nativized by children as the primary language

Archaeology (Branch of Anthropology)

… the study of human history through the study of artifacts and material remains (e.g. monuments, pottery, walls)

— Archaeologists spend much of their time searching for ancient architecture, artifacts, and environmental data left behind by civilizations, then they will analyse their findings in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the human society that left them, as well as other civilizations that it would have interacted with and influenced

— In some academic institutions, archaeology is considered a separate discipline from anthropology

— Many of the theories of cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropologists would not be possible without the discoveries of archaeologists.

Functionalism (School of Thought)

… created as a response to the inabilities of the earlier theories of evolutionism and diffusionism

— Early functionalists felt that they needed to base their conclusions solely on the observations they made and facts they could confirm, rather than on what they saw as the 'pseudo history' touted by evolutionists and diffusionists.

Structuralism (School of Thought)

… the main goal of structuralism is to discover those hidden rules in cultures. the differences in these rules made cultures unique

Cultural Materialism (School of Thought)

• founded by dr. marvin havis in 1968

• influenced by marxist materialism

… proposes that three distinct levels are involved in any societal framework: infrastructure, structure, and superstructure.

infrastructure - technological and economic factors which cultural materialists believe directly influence the structure

structure - family systems and political organization

superstructure - ideological and symbolic aspects of society such as religion

explain how anthropology can help to explain social change

identify different branches of anthropology

list a variety of schools of thought within anthropology

define cultural materialism

… the study of the mind

Psychology combines aspects of traditional social scientific inquiry with modern neurobiology to try to understand behaviour and mental processes in individuals and groups

In the late 19th century, psychology truly became a field of its own, separate from philosophy and biology. Key figures: Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Wundt and Ivan Pavlov

Establishing psychology as a distinct field of scientific inquiry belongs to Wilhelm Wundt who created the first psychological laboratory in 1879

Psychoanalysis (School of Thought)

… initially developed in the 1890s by Sigmund Freud

• The best known of the psychological schools of thought

Freud’s Psychosexual Phases

→ led him to believe that anxiety and its physical symptoms could largely be the result of repressed sexual wishes that an individual had pushed into an subconscious state due to societal restrictions and beliefs about sex.

The Structural Theory

• Id: Unconscious and contains the basic instinctual drives. Freud believed that it acted according to the ‘pleasure principle’ and would always seek to avoid pain and satisfy its instinctual needs. Because the id is unconscious, psychoanalysts believe they can study it by examining dreams, where the id can take over.

• Ego: Described as the rational, organized, and realistic part of the psyche. The ego is the consciously aware of the three and works to please the id’s drives in realistic ways. The ego is in a perpetual state of conflict, as the id will never completely yield its instinctual desires.

• Superego: like the id, is mostly unconscious and where the ideals and values that a person learns from his or her parents or role models are stored. Freud believed that the superego is a person’s conscience, and it acts directly in opposition to the id. The superego is responsible for feelings of guilt and is a means of maintaining morality after we give in to the wants of the id.

Behaviourism

Began in 1890’s but was fully defined in mid-20th century when B.F Skinner started heavily publishing about the topic.

• People who support behaviourism tend to believe that everything that an organism does can be regarded as a behaviour.

One of the main goals of behaviourism is to discover how people and other animals learn.

B.F Skinner believed that understanding behaviours and their causes was an essential part of understanding why humanity has evolved into what it is today. He also felt that all behaviours resulted from reinforcing consequences

Stimulus: Something that causes something else to happen

Classical Conditioning: Association of a stimulus with an involuntary response.

Operant Conditioning: All behaviours resulted from reinforcing consequences. Skinner believed that by applying a punishment or by removing a stimulus, a behaviour could be weakened.

Behaviourism, when combined with cognitive psychological practices, have successfully treated certain types of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and addictions.

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is currently one of the most popular schools of thought, and significant research continues in hopes of developing a better understanding of perception, memory, language acquisition, choice, logic, etc.

Cognitive Psychology: study of how people think and process information; includes attention, memory, language use, problem-solving, perception, and creativity

Sociology examines many different subjects in its attempts understand human systems and social structures. These subjects include, but are not limited to

• Social class

• Law

• Religion

• Deviance

• Health

• Corrections Institutions

• The Internet

Auguste Compte - The Father of Sociology

Sociology: the study of human society including social life, social change, social dynamics, and the consequences of human behaviour

Demography (Branch)

has been present for centuries

Demography: use of statistics to study and analyse human populations and their changing structures

Areas of interest for demographers include, but are certainly not limited to, birth and mortality rates, aging, and migration.

Censuses and surveys, especially in modernized countries, provide demographers with ease of access to information regarding these areas of interest,

Criminology (Branch)

Criminologists aim to understand the causes of crime in hopes that societies may shape their policies to remove influences or create successful deterrents for criminal behaviour.

• they work closely with the sociological sub-field of penology which deals with the punishment and rehabilitation systems set up for criminals.

Criminology: the study of the nature, causes, and control of criminal behaviour in individuals and society.

It has also been a controversial field, as determining widespread factors for causes of crime has led to theories that have caused racism and prejudice.

Nationalism Studies (Branch)

One of the main goals of the field is to understand how nationalism, considered by a great many people to be a progressive stage in the development of human societies, could incite groups of people to commit terrible acts of violence

Nationalism Studies: examining the phenomena of the nation-state to explain how and why nations form and split, how they socialize and indoctrinate their citizens, and how the idea of nationalism can promote atrocious acts of violence based on ethnicity or geographical location of birth

Structural Functionalism

both structuralism and functionalism aim to understand cultures as a whole through the examination of their smaller systems (functionalism), hidden rules, and binary oppositions (structuralism).

many of the original sociological theories regarding how societies work and endure were developed with the belief that the best way to interpret a society was by examining all of the interrelated parts of the overall structure.

Structural-Functionalism tended to be biased on the examination of institutions of capitalist and industrialized western societies because most of the early sociologists came from those areas.

Structural-Functionalism: society is structured with interrelated parts and social change happens as a result of the interaction and tension between these parts

Marxism

Marxism favours a materialistic interpretation of history and the development of societies believing that the type of economy a civilization adopts will play a substantial role in determining the type of society it will become.

Developed primarily by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century

Marxism: a theory that believes social changes result from economic influences, particularly the effects of the ruling class on labourers which include the uneven distribution of wealth and privilege in society

Cultural Materialism: the belief that the physical and material world shapes and defines human culture

Conflict Theories: are perspectives in sociology that tend to focus on class struggles and power differentials; they criticize the broad socio-political system by emphasizing social, political, or material inequalities of social groups

Capitalism: an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit; characteristics include private property, wage labour, and competitive markets

Conflict theories: are perspectives in sociology that tend to focus on class struggles and power differentials; they criticize the broad socio-political system by emphasizing social, political, or material inequalities of social groups

socialism

a societal system in which there is no private property, and the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

communism

a system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, with actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole

structural Marxism

a theory that disputes the view that the state can be viewed as the direct servant of the capitalist or ruling class, and instead takes the position that the institutions of the state must function to generally ensure ongoing viability of capitalism

Marxist Humanism

a branch of Marxism that sees man's essential nature is that of a free producer, reproducing their own conditions of life, but under capitalism they are alienated from their productive activity and compelled to sell their labour-power; to overcome this, the wage-labour system and separation of the labourer from the means of labour must be abolished

symbolic interactionism

symbolic interactionism focuses on micro-scale social interactions and can be summarized as the belief that “people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them; and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.”

This school of thought adheres to the theory that people will be best understood if studied in their own environments, and this method often uses participant observation as its main means of gathering information.

Symbolic Interactionism: a theory that believes individuals' interactions based on individuals’ subjective interpretation of shared symbols (e.g. objects, behaviours, events) and based on their own beliefs, values, and experiences

looking glass self: Charles Horton Cooley, another important influence on Blumer, believed that people's identities are largely shaped by the way individuals perceive how others perceive them.

Feminist theory

Feminist Theory: a form of psychology that focuses on social structures, discrimination, and exclusion based on sex and gender

patriarchy is a form of social organization in which a male is the head of the family and descent, kinship, and title are traced through the male line

Feminist theory has been applied to many disciplines and in the social sciences has been important in the development (or redevelopment) of theories regarding family origins and the process of patriarchy

Feminist theory arose as a sociological school of thought in the midst of this struggle with the goal of understanding the nature of gender inequality.

Other important themes explored by feminist theory include

• Discrimination,

• Stereotyping, and

• Sexual Objectification

Methods of Social Science Research

Survey

A survey is a set of questions designed by a social scientist to generate specific information in a useable format. This format can target a specific and large group of people to obtain data in a relatively short period of time.

Participanant Observation

Natural Experiment

A study created to explore how individuals act in given situations. Natural experiment deals with measuring and explaining human behavior.

Interviews

Interviews can have close-ended or open-ended questions.

Ethnography—Field Research

A process of describing a way of life, ethnography uses people to reflect a culture using their gestures, symbols, songs, sayings, etc. Ethnography involves observation and note-taking that includes rich, detailed descriptions of what happened.

Qualitative and Quantitative Research

When research is conducted, there are two main methods used in the social sciences: qualitative and quantitative. The type of research conducted will depend on what the research is designed to investigate, the type of research questions that have been asked, and the discipline.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is about "quantity" or, in other words, gathering numerical data that can be calculated, and analysed. Quantitative research data is concrete and measurable. It can be measured, tested, and repeated.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research gathers non-measurable data or, in other words, data that is non-numerical. Instead, qualitative data relies on subjective information such as experiences, opinions, emotions, and attitudes. Qualitative data collects words, images, sounds and audio gathered primarily through observation and interviews.

Ethics

Ethics: a system of beliefs that defines standards of right and wrong based on moral standards

Ethical Guidelines for Research with Human Subjects:

1. Psychologists must consider both the risks and benefits of research involving human subjects before undertaking such research. In order to justify the research, the benefits to human welfare and psychological science must outweigh the risks to the subjects involved. The psychologist must consider alternative ways to conduct the research to minimize risks to the subjects.

2. Psychologists must show respect and concern for the welfare and dignity of human subjects participating in research.

3. Psychologists must be aware of and adhere to federal and state regulations and professional standards which apply to research with human participants.

4. If research assistants help with the research, the psychologist in charge still has responsibility for ensuring that assistants comply with ethical guidelines and provincial and federal regulations.

5. Psychologists inform subjects of the purpose of the experiment and the risks involved in their participation prior to beginning the research. That is, psychologists obtain informed consent from human subjects.

6. If it is necessary to deceive subjects as to the purpose of an experiment, psychologists must ensure that the benefits of the deception outweigh the risks, that they have carefully considered alternative strategies, and that subjects will be informed of the true purpose of the experiment as soon as possible after completion of the study.

7. Psychologists respect the rights of human subjects to withdraw from participating in an experiment at any time.

8. Psychologists protect humans participating in research from mental and physical harm which may arise from their participation in the experiment.

9. When research inadvertently results in some form of harm to human subjects, the psychologist has a responsibility to try to repair the damage.

10. Information about human participants which is obtained in the course of psychological research is considered confidential unless otherwise agreed in advance.

11. When the research is completed, the psychologist provides participants with information about the purpose of the study and the findings obtained.

Research Process

Step 1: Research Question

Step 2: Gather Information/Research

Step 3: Hypothesize

Step 4: Methodology

In this step you will test your hypothesis. The methodology refers to your step-by-step plan developed to determine the validity of your hypothesis. The method you choose must be appropriate to the question you're exploring.

Step 5: Analyse Data

Organize the information by using graphs, charts, etc., and analyze how the data affect your hypothesis.

Step 6: Conclusions

Draw conclusions and communicate your results.

• Evaluate Your Results: In your experiment, you may have found that the testosterone injection had no detectable effect and your hypothesis is invalid.

• Evaluate Your Hypothesis: How does your hypothesis relate to your empirical findings?

Your conclusions can state only whether the test supports or fails to support your original hypothesis. Based on one test, you will almost never be able to say you have proven or disproven the hypothesis as there are too many variables that must be considered and tests using a variety of experimental methods.

Formulating Effective Research Questions

A research question is typically the first step in the research process. The research question shapes and defines the research you would like to do, giving it specific limits and purpose. A number of acronyms can be used to help create a strong research question. One such acronym is FINER.

Assessing Sources

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary sources include raw data, first-hand evidence such as interviews and surveys, or original research articles. Secondary sources interpret, analyse, and provide commentary on primary sources.

Accuracy

While you may not be able to fully determine the accuracy of a research report or qualitative data included in a study, there are things you can consider when determining the accuracy of a resource.  One consideration is whether the research article has been peer reviewed. Peer review is a process by which other experts in the field review the methodology, data, and conclusions presented in a research paper. Another consideration is the qualifications of the author or researcher. Are they experienced in the field? Have there been controversy surrounding their methods in the past? And, finally, you can consider the research design.

Relevance

Consider whether the information you have found is relevant to your project. Does it provide information you require, or are you trying to make this information fit? Does the information directly relate to your topic? Does the information answer the research questions you developed at the start of your research process?

Reliability

Authority relates to the person or organization that created the information. Is the writer an expert on the topic? Does the author have personal experience in this area? Does the writer's education relate to the topic? Is the writer connected in any way to a group or business that has experience in this area? Answers to these questions will help you determine if the writer has the knowledge and authority to speak or write about the topic.

Bias

Bias is a tendency to prefer or favour a thing, person, or idea over another; usually a prejudged position that is not based in reason. Confirmation bias is the interpretation of evidence in a way that confirms our beliefs or theories. Confirmation bias can influence research. When conducting research, since both the depth and the accuracy of data are important, the effects of confirmation bias must be considered.

Working With Your Research

Primary or Secondary Source?

Similar to when you assessed a potential source, when analysing and interpreting sources, you should consider whether the source is a primary or secondary source. Keep in mind that primary sources are comprised of raw data or first-person accounts. They have often not been edited, analysed, or cleaned of bias, so your work with such sources must take these factors into account.

Comparing Information

As you work through your research material, compare the information from different sources and different types of sources.

Supported By Other Sources

Likewise, when using research articles or published works, compare how this information fits with the ideas and research conducted by others. Sometimes contradictions can point to errors, and sometimes they can point to new areas for study. However, facts are facts, so you should be able to confirm the facts shared in one source with the facts shared in a different source. If the ideas from one source differ from ideas from all other sources, you will need to consider whether that first source is valid.

Synthesizing Your Own Research

Have you designed your own research study? Gathered your own data? Conducted your own interviews? The scientific method defines the general process of research, but there are a couple additional things to consider:

Recording Research