Psy 303.  Person in Society:
Constructing a Multicultural Society in the United States

Fall 2004

Exam Questions

All questions that might appear in the midterm will be on the class web site at least one week before the midterm.

Matching:

Match column A with Column B by placing the letter from column A in the approprioate blank in Column B

Column A

a)  Theory

b)  Presentational Symbols

c)  Discursive Symbols

d)  Intersubjectivity

e)  Ideology

f)   Ego Integrity vs. Despair 

g)  Identity vs. Role Diffusion 

h)  Industry vs. Inferiority

i)  Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt

j)  Expressive Roles

k)  Instrumental Roles
  
 

Column B

___A dominant idea of our time. 

___Providing basic security and material needs.

___Culture is a result of consciousness and the human capacity for symbolic communication

___ Stage 1.  Language and expressive symbolism

___ Stage 2.  Consolidation of cultural tools

___ Stage 3.  Initiation into adult roles.

___ Stage 4.  Consolidation, modification, and transmission of culture.

___ A way of understanding and offering thoughts on how to intervene.

___Care of the emotional life of the home.

___Symbols that have an emotional and/or formal relationship to the referent symbolized, such as a photograph

___Arbitrary, abstract symbols, such as a mathematical formula


 

True/False:

According to Clifford Geertz, the human cortex evolved as a tool for communication.

A system is a whole that can be understood by analyzing its parts.

A system is a Gestalt.

According to Clifford Geertz, religion is a system.

French culture is higher on the context scale than California culture.

José Ortega y Gasset believes that human nature is more important than human culture.

According to Carlos Fuentes, history and culture are more powerful factors in Latino society than they are in U.S. society.

According to the author, Alice Walker, The Color Purple is primarily a saga of racial oppression.

“Presentational symbolic forms” present complex ideas using abstract symbols.

The discursive-presentational symbol model is the opposite of psychology’s left brain-right brain model.

“Mi Familia” presents Mexican-American culture as a homogenous system.

Presentational symbols are more important than discursive symbols in the culture of modern industrial society.

WWII had little impact on the racial diversity California.

Structural functionalism views society as ordered, harmonious and seeking balance.

Social Conflict Theory views society as seeking balance from world conflict.

According to the conflict perspective, power is about control of resources, ownership of the means of production, and the ability to control others.

The conflict perspective minimize the role of class and gender in society.

In a society such as the U.S. characterized by social mobility, concepts such a bourgeoisie and proletariat are relatively unimportant.

Alienation is an important concept in understanding the breakdown of the traditional family.

According to Frederick Engels, capitalism has hurt women particularly.

Contemporary feminism is primarily a sociological discipline.

Most feminists agree that gender identity is primarily determined by genetics.

The “world empire system” was generally characterized by cultural coherence, while the “capitalist world economy” is generally characterized by cultural fragmentation.

Maria Mies believes that capitalism has destroyed the nuclear family.

Carlos Fuentes would probably see the father’s statement at the end of My Family that we have had a good life as an affirmation of the strength and richness of Latin American culture.

Latin American culture is multiethnic and reflects Iberian, Mediterranean, Greek, Roman, Arab, Jewish, Indigenous Mesoamerican, and African roots.

The social crises of the 1940s in Los Angeles were completely different from those of today.

The “Pachuco represented an assimilation of U.S. popular culture to Mexican traditions.

The Pachucos were forerunners of the Chicanos.

Mexicans were imported as agricultural workers during the Great Depression and deported as surplus labor during World War II.

The Pachuco subculture was exclusively Latin American.

“Hispanic” is a word of English derivation, while “Latino/Latino” is Spanish.

Eugenics has never been an important influence on racism in the U.S.

The “melting pot” concept promotes the value of assimilation.
 
 

Multiple Choice:


Culture is not

 a) a set of rules
 b) a characteristic of groups
 c) normally fully conscious
 d) related to a group's sense of identity


Which of the following cross-cultural dialogues in NOT part of “The Wedding Banquet”?

 a)  East Coast-West Coast
 b)  Taiwan-Mainland China
 c)  Gender identity
 e)  Tradition-Modernity


Left-brain symbolism is LEAST dominant in

a)  science and technology
b)  law and government
c)  the price-auction market
d)  sales and marketing


Infantile amnesia refers to

a) the unfortunate consequence of high fever or dropping the infant
b) a disorder highly treatable with new medications
c) the inability to remember our babyhood and toddlerhood because of the nature of the brain processes of an infant.


Which of the following statements is true?

a)  Structural functionalists see culture as adaptive.
b)  Social conflict theorists see culture as hegemonic.
c)  Professor Warmoth sees culture as socially constructed.
d)  All of the above.


Urban development in Los Angeles

a)   provides a backdrop for the film "Mi Familia"
b)  has been heavily dependent on Mexican immigrants
c)  incorporated Anglo fantasies about Mexico
d)  all of the above.
Elaine Leeder defines tendencies of gender roles in terms of ___________________ roles for women and __________________roles for men.
 
a) Social; Individual
b) Expressive; Instrumental
c) Passive; Active
d) Structural; Functional
2) Clifford Geertz states, “In the intellectual history of the behavioral sciences, the concept of _________ has played a curious double role.”
a) Nature
b) Culture
c) Consciousness
d) Mind
In “Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon,” the term Nativist refers to
a)   Indigenous native
b)   Mexican born in California
c)   Bi-racial Californian
d)  White racist
Which pf the following is the least important theme in Monsoon Wedding?
a)  Gender roles
b)  Class roles
c)  Economic modernization
d)  Capitalist exploitation of the Third World
Which of the following is the least important theme in The Color Purple?
a)  Urbanization
b)  Race
c)  The sisterhood of women
d)  Spirituality

Short Essay:

Maximum 2 paragraphs per answer.

1) Choose a character from one of the films that you were drawn to and explain two ways in which you related to their experiences.
1a) If you were in that character’s place, what would you do differently? The same? How do you think your culture influences your choices?

2) Describe a cultural ritual that you observed in a/the film(s). How does it function to hold the group together?
2a) Compare this to your own experience of a cultural ritual. Describe how your ritual functions as part of your cultural identity, both as an individual and as part of the collective.

3) Give an example from movie(s) of secrets or unspoken truths and how they function to shield, stabilize, and hold cultural/family norms in place.
3a) Give an example from your own life that compares/contrasts your example from movie(s).

4) How did WWII impact the cultural diversity of California?

5) Do you think the family is a pawn in the global system or an active participant in creating itself?
Support your answer.

6)  Each of the four films reflects the author and/or filmmaker’s encounter with issue of cultural identity.  Describe how one of more of the films has influenced your thinking about this issue.