HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Human Behavior

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Human Behavior

Introduction

The effect of people moving from one location to another or the realization that heritage is a major determinant in all that we do provides the background for the explanation of why we view and analyze cross-cultural studies. Looking back to the beginning, humans vary in numerous ways. Anthropology seeks to answer these questions about Homo sapiens. Scientists have sought to discover where and why humans appeared on earth, why the changes occurred, and why humans vary in physical features throughout the world.

Cross-cultural studies are significant because the relationship between different cultures has an effect on all cultures. The history of the area in which people live affects their lives, their families, and the communities they inhabit. Understanding heritage and understanding expectations in one's environment allows people to view themselves in a hierarchical structure. All cultures are organized, from the smallest tribe to the largest groups, and everyone must have knowledge of their community. This knowledge must include language, social structure, political insight, and religion. Even before these areas are identified and labeled, they have existed in both modern society and in the early gatherings of humans. Inherent in the differences is the fact that there are similarities in all cultures as each one strives to maintain its existence. This existence is vital even before the group assimilates with the larger environment.

Discussion

George Peter Murdock is noted among the earliest anthropologists. In the late 1940s, Murdock and colleagues organized the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF). He recognized the need to set a standard to evaluate and list all cultural groups, and to put this in writing. HRAF now consists of years of committed research recorded by approximately 400 different ethnographers. Well before Murdock, Lewis Henry Morgan conducted research with the Seneca Indians, collecting data from more than 70 Native American Indian tribes in unilineal evolution. This comparison of cultures using evolution as a basis for organization was first undertaken by Morgan and is still considered advanced today. Some of the first British social evolutionists were Herbert Spencer, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, Sir James Gerorge Frazer, and Edward Westermarck.

Cultures have some traits in common with each other within clusters of characteristic behavior. All societies progress through an identical series of distinct evolutionary stages, which Tylor proposed in his writings. Tylor (in Gillies, n.d.) stated that “human culture developed through three stages-that of savagery, barbarism and civilization” (p. 1). Morgan (1877) was one of the first to provide a written analysis by collecting questionnaires about Native Americans and other U.S. groups. These questionnaires provided a basis for Morgan to formulate additional ideas and theories on this subject. This type of research provided a framework for other anthropologists who followed Morgan and completed extensive documented research on individuals and their cultures.

As we take into account recent steps in understanding culture, there must also be a discussion of the role archaeology reveals. Archaeology is the systematic study of past cultures recognizing that the remains of a ...