George_Murdock | TriviaQuestions.online

⭐ In the context of cultural universals, George Murdock’s work is most significantly associated with which perspective?

Murdock's research, alongside evolutionary psychologists, suggests that widespread patterns across cultures may indicate underlying biological or evolutionary roots, rather than solely being products of cultural learning.

⭐ Core Definition: 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 ethnological studies and his study of family and kinship structures across differing cultures.

His 1967 Ethnographic Atlas dataset on more than 1,200 pre-industrial societies is influential and frequently used in social science research. He also created the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample with Douglas R. White.

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👉 George Murdock in the context of Cultural universal

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 as the human condition. Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations. 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, George Murdock, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Donald Brown.

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