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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.[1] 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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In his book Human Universals (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:[2]
Language and cognition
- Language is translatable
- Abstraction in speech and thought
- Antonyms, synonyms
- Logical notions of "and", "not", "opposite", "equivalent", "part/whole", "general/particular"
- Binary cognitive distinctions
- Color terms: black, white
- Classification of: age, behavioral propensities, body parts, colors, fauna, flora, inner states, kin, gender, space, tools, weather conditions
- Continua (ordering as cognitive pattern)
- Discrepancies between speech, thought, and action
- Figurative speech, metaphors
- Symbolism, symbolic speech
- Synesthetic metaphors
- Tabooed utterances
- Special speech for special occasions
- Prestige from proficient use of language (e.g. poetry)
- Planning
- Units of time
- Language employed to manipulate others
- Language employed to misinform or mislead
Society
- Personal names
- Family or household
- Kin groups
- Peer groups not based on family
- Actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
- Affection expressed and felt
- Age grades
- Age statuses
- Age terms
- Law: rights and obligations, rules of membership
- Moral sentiments
- Distinguishing right and wrong, good and bad
- Promise/oath
- Prestige inequalities
- Statuses and roles[3][4]
- Leaders
- Inclination towards patriarchy (dominance of men in society)
- De facto oligarchy
- Property
- Coalitions
- Collective identities
- Conflict
- Cooperative labor
- Gender roles
- Males on average travel greater distances over lifetime
- Marriage
- Husband older than wife on average
- Copulation normally conducted in privacy
- Incest prevention or avoidance, incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
- Collective decision making
- Etiquette
- Inheritance rules
- Generosity admired, gift giving
- Mood- or consciousness-altering techniques and/or substances
- Redress of wrongs, sanctions
- Sexual jealousy
- Sexual violence
- Shame
- Territoriality
- Triangular awareness (assessing relationships among the self and two other people)
- Some forms of proscribed violence
- Visiting
- Trade
Beliefs
- Magical thinking
- Use of magic to increase life and win love
- Beliefs about death
- Beliefs about disease
- Beliefs about fortune and misfortune
- Divination
- Attempts to control weather
- Dream interpretation
- Beliefs and narratives
- Proverbs, sayings
- Poetry/rhetorics
- Healing practices, medicine
- Childbirth customs
- Rites of passage
- Music, rhythm, dance, and to some degree associations between music and emotion
- Play
- Toys, playthings
- Death rituals, mourning
- Feasting
- Body adornment
- Hairstyles
- Art
Technology
Based on experiments and studies of accidental and utopian societies, sociologist and evolutionary biologist Nicholas Christakis proposes that humans have evolved to genetically favor societies that have eight universal attributes, including:[5]
- Love for romantic partners
- Love for offspring
- Friendship
- Social networks
- Cooperation
- In-group favoritism
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.[6]
Outside influence could be an explanation for some cultural universals.[7] This does not preclude multiple independent inventions of civilization and is therefore not the same thing as hyperdiffusionism; it merely means that cultural universals are not proof of innateness.[8]
Donald Brown's perspective echoes a common belief held by many anthropologists of his time and earlier (increasingly those who have transitioned into the fields of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary anthropology, sociobiology and human behavioral ecology) who were critical of the cultural relativism of the Boas-Sapir school which has dominated much of western cultural anthropology for the last century. He attempted to find evidence for the universality of western concepts such as patriarchy, male domination, and control over female sexuality (such as the sexual double standard), often deliberately neglecting to mention the copious ethnographic evidence against these being universal traits. By the time of the publication of his 1991 book "Human Universals", it was common knowledge among anthropologists that many societies had egalitarian gender relations[9] and did not police women's sexuality,[10] but Brown chose to ignore this data and instead cobble together a narrative which seems to fit with his sociobiological presuppositions, selectively citing authors who agreed with him and ignoring those (such as Gwen J. Broude) who did not.
In fact, one major problem with Brown's work is that it is classic "armchair anthropology" which is based almost entirely on speculative work and catalogues the research of others, mostly those whom Brown himself had already decided were correct a priori. For instance, when discussing the supposed "universality" of male sexuality as more potent and aggressive than female's, he quotes "Starting from assumptions generated by an evolutionary perspective, Symons (1979) and Daly and Wilson (1983 [1978]) explain and document a complex of universal or near-universal differences between the sexes. Among them are the following: Sex is seen as a service given by females to males (females being the limiting resource); male sexual jealousy is more violent (confidence of paternity being a problem without a female counterpart); men are more quickly aroused, and more by visual stimuli (females being more choosy, and the signs of reproductive potential being more visibly discernible in the female); and the average husband is older than his wife (because a male’s reproductive potential—linked as it is to his ability to invest in child care—typically peaks later than a female’s)".[11] Brown's major source for this is Donald Symons, himself an armchair anthropologist who did not perform any actual fieldwork but rather selectively interpreted certain ethnographies while ignoring those which disputed his assumptions (i.e. cherry picking). One does not need to look very far into the ethnographic record, for instance, to find very copious refutation of the claims that "sex is seen as a service given by females to males"; some of the most eminent ethnographies of the last century argue the exact opposite, such as Pelto's on the Sami,[12] Altschuler's on the Cayapa,[13] or Dentan's on the Semai.[14] Similarly, many ancient and medieval texts argue the opposite: sex is seen as a service which men provide to women. This perspective is found in the Talmud,[15] the Quran and tafsir,[16] and some Hindu literature, all of which stands as a testimony to the impossibility of Symons' evidence-free assertion. The similar "universal" claim of women being the "choosers" while men compete is easily debunked by the large number of societies where women court men, not the other way around (examples include the Sami and Cayapa mentioned above as well as the Tuareg,[17] Tarahumara[18] Garo and Hopi[19]). Even the claim of consistently higher male age at marriage struggles to conform itself to the widely known pattern among social historians of higher female age at marriage in some parts of Bulgaria,[20] Russia and especially the Volga region[21] during the nineteenth century.
Brown attempted to respond to criticism by citing highly questionable authorities and ideas now considered discredited or pseudoscientific. For instance, in order to "disprove" Margaret Mead's work on Samoa, he gave an uncompromisingly positive appraisal of Derek Freeman's so-called "refutation" of Mead; Freeman's work is now mostly regarded by anthropologists as being itself problematic and unreliable, more so than Mead's original research.[22][23] He also makes copious reference to the universality of the Oedipus complex, which is now rejected as pseudoscience even within western society.
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