Problem: Please respond to the items below in essay format. There is no specific page requirement. The important thing is to clearly and completely address the items(s). I would recommend approximately two pages. Please review the grading rubric for guidance. Essay must include specific content from lecture and personalization (e.g. personal example, application to life experience, etc). All external source material (including AI generated material) used must be cited in the essay and final list of resources provided. If using ChatGPT or other AI resources, you must submit chat query and original results with essay as cited source material.
Essay:
Briefly describe the four theories of culture from lecture. Chose the one that you believe is most plausible. Explain why your choice is more plausible than the others.
Here are the theories:
- There are a number of possible reasons as to why we have culture.
- Evolutionary psychology says many human motives are based on strivings for survival. Culture leads to thriving societies as it seems to put order to what would otherwise be social chaos. Values, belief systems, and behavior norms create a way of life that serves the motive to survive.
- Terror management theory (or TMT) says that humans are the only animals that are self-aware and able to think about the self in time, thus we are aware of death and use culture to relieve anxiety surrounding death.
- Sense-making and is similar to TMT in that it focuses on humans as being intelligent creatures and motivated to make sense out of their reality. Humans are "wired" to make sense of the world and culture helps us accomplish this.
- By-Product theory says that we create culture simply because we are smart and we can.