A cultural universal (also called an anthropological universal or human universal) is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all known
human culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylo ...
s worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the
human condition
The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed f ...
.
Evolutionary psychologists
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evol ...
hold that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations.
[Schacter, Daniel L, Daniel Wegner and Daniel Gilbert. 2007. ''Psychology''. Worth Publishers. pp. 26–27] Some anthropological and sociological theorists that take a
cultural relativist perspective may deny the existence of cultural universals: the extent to which these universals are "cultural" in the narrow sense, or in fact biologically inherited
behavior is an issue of "
nature versus nurture". Prominent scholars on the topic include
Emile Durkheim
Emil or Emile may refer to:
Literature
*''Emile, or On Education'' (1762), a treatise on education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* ''Émile'' (novel) (1827), an autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life
*''Emil and the Detective ...
,
George Murdock
George Peter ("Pete") Murdock (May 11, 1897 – March 29, 1985), also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American anthropologist who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethn ...
,
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...
, and
Donald Brown.
Donald Brown's list in ''Human Universals''
In his book ''
Human Universals
A cultural universal (also called an anthropological universal or human universal) is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all known human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known ...
'' (1991), Donald Brown defines human universals as comprising "those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exception", providing a list of hundreds of items he suggests as universal. Among the cultural universals listed by Donald Brown are:
Language and cognition
Society
Beliefs
Technology
* Shelter
*
Control of fire
* Tools, tool making
*
Weapon
A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, ...
s, spear
* Containers
*
Cooking
*
Lever
A lever is a simple machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or '' fulcrum''. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the locations of fulcrum, load and effort, the lever is d ...
*
Rope
A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similar ...
Non-nativist explanations
The observation of the same or similar behavior in different cultures does not prove that they are the results of a common underlying psychological mechanism. One possibility is that they may have been invented independently due to a common practical problem.
Outside influence could be an explanation for some cultural universals. This does not preclude multiple independent inventions of
civilization
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).
...
and is therefore not the same thing as
hyperdiffusionism
Hyperdiffusionism is a pseudoarchaeological hypothesis suggesting that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or civilization before their adoption by other cultures. Thus, all great civilizations that share simil ...
; it merely means that cultural universals are not proof of
innateness.
[Cultures and Globalization: Cultural Expression, Creativity and Innovation, Helmut K Anheier, Yudhishthir Raj Isar 2010]
See also
*
Animal culture
Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning.
Culture is increasingly seen as a process, involving the social transmittance of behavior among p ...
*
Archetype
The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...
*
Biocultural anthropology Biocultural anthropology can be defined in numerous ways. It is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. "Instead of looking for the underlying biological roots of human behavior, biocultural anthropology at ...
*
Culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...
*
Social learning
*
Social norm
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
Joseph H. Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on M ...
, et al. (1978) ''Universals of Human Language'', 4 vols.
Stanford University Press.
*
Charles D. Laughlin
Charles D. Laughlin, Jr. (born 1938) is a neuroanthropologist known primarily for having co-founded a school of neuroanthropological theory called "biogenetic structuralism." Laughlin is an emeritus professor of anthropology and religion at Carl ...
and
Eugene G. d'Aquili
Eugene G. d'Aquili (1940-1998) was a research psychiatrist who specialized in studying members of religious communities (e.g., brain image scans).
Works
*''Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief'' (2001) with Andrew Newber ...
(1974) ''Biogenetic Structuralism''. New York: Columbia University Press.
*
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...
(1966) ''The Savage Mind''. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. .
irst published in French in 1962 as ''La Pensee Sauvage''. .*
George P. Murdock (1945), "The Common Denominator of Culture," in ''The Science of Man in the World Crisis'', Ralph Linton (ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
*
Charles E. Osgood,
William S May, and
Murray S Miron
Murray may refer to:
Businesses
* Murray (bicycle company), an American manufacturer of low-cost bicycles
* Murrays, an Australian bus company
* Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trust
* D. & W. Murray Limited, an Australian whole ...
(1975) ''Cross-Cultural Universals of Affective Meaning'' Champaign, IL:
University of Illinois Press
The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic proje ...
.
*
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
...
(2002),
''The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature'', New York:
Penguin Putnam
Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initially ...
.
*
Rik Pinxten
Rik Pinxten (born 12 March 1947 in Antwerp) is a professor and researcher in cultural anthropology at Ghent University. Between 2003 and 2010 he was chairman of the Liberal Humanist Association of Flanders, the Flemish section of The Humanist Ass ...
(1976)
"Epistemic universals: A contribution to cognitive anthropology."(PART II: Chapter 7.) In Pinxten, Rik (ed.). ''Universalism Versus Relativism in Language and Thought''.
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
: De Gruyter Mouton.
* Brief news report of Psychological Bulletin article, Anderson, Hildreth, Howland (2015): Berkeley Haas School of Business. (May 6, 2015
"We all want high social status."''ScienceDaily''. Berkeley: University of California. Retrieved 24 March 2021
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