Human Universals
Page 27
Kottak, Conrad
1978
Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity. New York: Random House.
Krauss, Robert M.
1968
Language as a Symbolic Process in Communication. American Scientist 56:265–278.
Kroeber, A. L.
*1901
Decorative Symbolism of the Arapaho. American Anthropologist 3:308–336. (Partly reprinted in Kroeber 1952.)
[Art is universally conventionalized.]
*1909
Classificatory Systems of Relationship. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 39:77–84.
1915
Eighteen Professions. American Anthropologist 17:283–288.
1917
The Superorganic. American Anthropologist 19:163–213. (Reprinted in Kroeber 1952.)
1923
Anthropology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company. (Revised and expanded in 1948.)
1928
Sub-human Culture Beginnings. Quarterly Review of Biology 3:325–342.
1935
History and Science in Anthropology. American Anthropologist 37:539–569. (Partly reprinted in Kroeber 1952.)
*1949
The Concept of Culture in Science. Journal of General Education 3:182–196. (Reprinted in Kroeber 1952.)
*1952
The Nature of Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1955
On Human Nature. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 11:195–204.
1960
Evolution, History, and Culture. In Evolution after Darwin. Vol. II, The Evolution of Man: Man, Culture and Society, edited by Sol Tax, pp. 1–16. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
La Barre, Weston
1947
The Cultural Basis of Emotions and Gestures. Journal of Personality 16:49– 68.
*1954
The Human Animal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[Beliefs in spiritual entities, such as the soul, are universal or nearly so. Personification. No one is ever wholly satisfied with his culture. Universal experiences include birth, death, dreaming, seeing, memory, thought, conscience, language, culture.]
*1980
Anthropological Perspectives on Hallucination, Hallucinogens, and the Shamanic Origins of Religion. In Culture in Context: Selected Writings of Weston La Barre, pp. 37–92. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
[The Freudian defense mechanisms, such as denial of unwelcome facts, are universal. So too are mood-altering drugs and the resulting altered states of consciousness.]
1984
Muelos: A Stone Age Superstition about Sexuality. New York: Columbia University Press.
La Fontaine, J. S.
1988
Child Sexual Abuse and the Incest Taboo: Practical Problems and Theoretical Issues. Man 23:1–18.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson
*1980
Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langlois, Judith H., and Lori A. Roggman
*1990
Attractive Faces Are Only Average. Psychological Science 1:115–121.
[The evidences suggests universality in facial attractiveness; specifically, that humans may possess an innate preference for faces that are average in their dimensions.]
Larsen, Jack Lenor (with Betty Freudenheim)
*1986
Interlacing: The Elemental Fabric. Tokyo: Kodansha International.
[Interlacing, the generic fabric construction “in which each element passes over and under elements that cross its path,” and that includes knotting, plaiting, and weaving, “is not only ancient, but universal” (pp. 10, 17).]
Lashley, K. S.
1929
Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence: A Quantitative Study of Injuries to the Brain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Leach, Edmund R.
*1958
Magical Hair. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 88:147–164.
[Hairdressing rituals are nearly universal, and anthropologists assume that hair universally possesses symbolic value.]
*1967
Virgin Birth. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1966, pp. 39–49.
[A nearly obsessional interest in sex and kinship is universal.]
*1973
Levels of Communication and Problems of Taboo in the the Appreciation of Primitive Art. In Forge, ed., pp. 221–234.
[In all societies men judge women in terms of visual attractiveness.]
*1982
Social Anthropology. New York: Oxford University Press.
[Contains an ambivalent discussion of “possible” universals.]
Lenneberg, Eric H.
*1967
Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley.
[In all languages one can give directions, describe past events, describe other persons’ behavior, etc. All languages change through time, but an underlying structure is universal. At the appropriate age, any normal child can learn any language (or any two languages simultaneously). Pp. 364, 377, 381.]
Lesser, Alexander
*1952
Evolution in Social Anthropology. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 8:134–146.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude
1953
In Results of the Conference of Anthropologists and Linguists. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics. Memoir 8. By Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roman Jakobson, C. F. Voegelin, and Thomas A. Sebeok, pp. 1–10. (Supplement to International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 19, no. 2.) Baltimore: Waverly.
*1960
On Manipulated Sociological Models. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 116:45–64.
[Universal pools may lie behind the “bewildering diversity” of ethnographic data (p. 52).]
*1962
The Savage Mind. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
[Says that all peoples tend to overestimate the objectivity of their thought.]
*1969
[1949] The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon Press.
[Prohibition of incest, nature/culture, reciprocity, exchange, kinship, rules.]
Levy, Jerre
*1976
A Review of the Evidence for a Genetic Component in the Determination of Handedness. Behavior Genetics 6:429–451.
Lewin, Roger
1989
Inbreeding Costs Swamp Benefits. Science 243:482.
Linton, Ralph
*1942
Age and Sex Categories. American Sociological Review 7:589–603.
*1952
Universal Ethical Principles: An Anthropological View. In Moral Principles of Action: Man’s Ethical Imperative, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, pp. 645–669. New York: Harper & Brothers.
[Universals of ethics include the distinction between good and bad, between in-group and out-group, and between the family and others; the regulation of sexual behavior; some form of prohibition of rape, murder, and other violence; regulation of relationships between family members; prohibition of sex between mother and son; the expectation of parental care and training of children; some provision for the poor and unfortunate; the concept of property; the recognition of economic obligations in relationship to exchanges of goods and services; and a demand for truthfulness in certain conditions. Also notes that there are no economically egalitarian societies and gives a number of near-universals.]
Lloyd, Barbara, and John Gay, eds.
*1981
Universals of Human Thought: Some African Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[Several authors explore the issues involved in conceptualizing and discovering universals. A distinction is made between process universals and product universals (universal processes may not result in universal products).]
Lomax, Alan
*1962
Song Structure and Social Structure. Ethnology 1:42
5–451.
[Melody is found in all musical systems.]
Lonner, Walter J.
*1980
The Search for Psychological Universals. In Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Vol. 1, Perspectives, edited by Harry C. Triandis and William Wilson Lambert, pp. 143–204. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
[A broad overview that includes anthropological, linguistic, and ethological materials as well. Provides various classifications of universals, e.g., simple, variform, functional, diachronic, ethologically oriented, systematic behavioral, and “cocktail party” universals (the latter are untestable, such as a hypothetical inability to transcend guilt). Aggression, hope, forgetting, anxiety, aesthetics, problem solving, rank, solidarity, an occasional need for privacy and silence, and the need to explain the world are among the many specific universals mentioned. An extensive discussion of universal models of interpersonal psychology.]
Lopreato, Joseph
*1984
Human Nature & Biocultural Evolution. Boston: Allen & Unwin.
[Relates universals to genetic predispositions on the one hand and sociocultural variants on the other. Specific universals: self-sacrifice for one’s group and “consuming substances to partake of their properties.”]
Lowie, Robert H.
1966
Culture and Ethnology. New York: Basic Books. (First published in 1917.)
Malinowski, Branislaw
*1960
[1944] A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.
1961
[1927] Sex and Repression in Savage Society. Cleveland: World.
Malotki, Ekkehart
*1983
Hopi Time: A Linguistic Analysis of the Temporal Concepts in the Hopi Language. Berlin: Mouton.
Mann, Alan
*1972
Hominid and Cultural Origins. Man 7:379–385.
[Tool dependence.]
Maquet, Jacques
*1986
The Aesthetic Experience: An Anthropologist Looks at the Visual Arts. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
[Argues that contemplation is an innate human capacity that underlies the universality or near-universality of an aesthetic sense and its products.]
Marković, Mihailo
*1983
Human Nature. In A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, edited by Tom Bottomore, pp. 214–217. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Marshack, Alexander
*1972
The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man’s First Art, Symbol and Notation. New York: McGraw-Hill.
[Provides evidence that “notation” (for example, notches on bone that may have counted the passage of time) began among humans in the Palaeolithic and may lie at the root of arithmetic, writing, and the calendar. If so, notation in one form or another may well be universal.]
Martin, Laura
1986
“Eskimo Words for Snow”: A Case Study in the Genesis and Decay of an Anthropological Example. American Anthropologist 88:418–423.
Maurer, Daphne
1985
Infants’ Perception of Facedness. In Field and Fox, pp. 73–100.
May, Robert M.
1979
When to Be Incestuous. Nature 279:192–194.
Mayer, Nancy Kozak, and Edward Z. Tronick
*1985
Mothers’ Turn-Giving Signals and Infant Turn-Taking in Mother-Infant Interaction. In Field and Fox, pp. 73–100.
Maynard Smith, J.
1964
Group Selection and Kin Selection. Nature 20:1145–1147.
1976
Group Selection. Quarterly Review of Biology 5: 277–283.
Mayr, E.
1961
Cause and Effect in Biology. Science 134:1501–1506.
1974
Behavior Programs and Evolutionary Strategies. American Scientist 62:650–659.
McCabe, Justine
*1983
FBD Marriage: Further Support for the Westermarck Hypothesis of the Incest Taboo? American Anthropologist 85:50–69.
Mead, Margaret
1928
Coming of Age in Samoa. New York: Morrow.
1935
Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York: Morrow.
*1968
Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. New York: Dell. (First published in 1949.)
[In all societies there is a division of labor by sex, the care of children is more women’s than men’s work, the sexes are thought to be different in more than procreative ways, and a male need for achievement is recognized.]
1969
The Social Organization of Manua. 2d ed. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press.
Meiselman, Karin C.
1978
Incest: A Psychological Study of Causes and Effects with Treatment Recommendations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Meltzoff, Andrew N., and Richard W. Borton
*1979
Intermodal Matching by Human Neonates. Nature 282: 403–404.
Michels, Roberto
*1915
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. New York: Hearst’s International Library Co.
[Argues that no society is ever a complete democracy or ever a complete autocracy; something less than everybody and more than one person always rules. Hence Michels’s “iron law of oligarchy.”]
Minderhout, David J.
1986
Introductory Texts and Social Science Stereotypes. Anthropology Newsletter 27 (3):14–15, 20.
Mitchell, W. J. T., ed.
*1981
On Narrative. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[Some contributors assert the universality of narrative.]
Mitchell, William E.
*1988
The Defeat of Hierarchy: Gambling as Exchange in a Sepik Society. American Ethnologist 15:638–657.
[”The penchant to rank and grade is intrinsic to the human condition.”]
Moerman, Michael
*1988
Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[A comparison of Thai and American conversations suggests universals of conversation structures.]
Mundkur, Balaji
*1983
The Cult of the Serpent: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Its Manifestations and Origins. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Murdock, George Peter
1932
The Science of Culture. American Anthropologist 34:200–215.
*1945
The Common Denominator of Cultures. In The Science of Man in the World Crisis, edited by Ralph Linton, pp. 123–142. New York: Columbia University Press.
1972
Anthropology’s Mythology. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for 1971, pp. 17–24.
1975
Outline of World Cultures. 5th ed. New Haven, Connecticut: Human Relations Area Files. (First published in 1954.)
Murdock, George P. et al.
*1971
Outline of Cultural Materials. 4th ed., rev. New Haven, Connecticut: Human Relations Area Files. (First published in 1961.)
Murphy, Jane
1976
Psychiatric Labelling in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Science 191:1019–1028.
[The evidence suggests that some mental illnesses are cross-culturally valid whether indigenously labeled or not.]
Nachman, Steven R.
*1984
Lies My Informants Told Me. Journal of Anthropological Research 40:536–555.
[Lying is universal.]
Nadel, Siegfried
*1957
The Theory of Social Structure. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press.
[Asserts the universality of statuses/roles.]
Nader, Laura
*1965
The Anthropological Study of Law. In The Ethnography of Law, edited by Laura Nader, pp. 3–32. Menasha, Wisconsin: American Anthropologi
[Summarizes discussions of universals in law.]
Nader, Laura, and June Starr
*1973
Is Equity Universal? In Equity in the World’s Legal Systems: A Comparative Study, edited by Ralph A. Newman, pp. 125–137. Brussels: Bruylant.
[The concept of equity, and most of the West’s other general legal concepts, are “probably present in some form throughout all societies.”]
Needham, Rodney
1967
Percussion and Transition. Man 2:606–614.
*1972
Belief, Language, and Experience. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
[Intention, the promise, and various inner states that are shown by external expression are universals.]
*1978
Primordial Characters. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
*1981
Circumstantial Deliveries. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
[Chapter 3 (originally published in Heelas and Lock 1981) discusses “inner states” as universals.]
Needham, Rodney, ed.
*1973
Right & Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[Wide-ranging studies of the symbolism accompanying handedness.]
Nettl, Bruno
*1983
The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-nine Issues and Concepts. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
[Chapter 3 is a concise conceptual discussion of universals in music. Music is a universal. Every musical “utterance” has a beginning, end, some repetition, some redundancy, some variation, and some rhythmic structure based on note length and dynamic stress. Music is always seen as an art, a creation. There is always some association of music with dance and ritual. Singing is universal, and always includes the use of words (poetry). Children’s music is universal. There are limits to what is musical in each tradition, and certain entirely possible elements, e.g., using only notes of equal length, occur in no musical traditions.]