Anthropology - Unit 3 Section 1 Page 6/6

Functionalism

The founder of another school of anthropological thought: Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) believed in Functionalism which assumes that all cultural traits serve the needs of individuals in a society. That is, the function of a culture trait is its ability to satisfy some basic or derived need of the members of the group. The basic needs include nutrition, reproduction, bodily comfort, safety, relaxation, movement, and group. Some aspects of the culture satisfy these basic needs. In doing so, they give rise to derived needs: eg. the need for cooperation in food collection, or protection; this leads to other kinds of social organization like political structures, religious hierarchies, and bureaucracies.

What functions are served by the decor of this room?

What functions are shown in this field that aid society?

Other Schools of Anthropological Thought

Other schools of thought in Anthropology include:

• Ethnoscience, relies heavily on linguistics and attempts to understand a culture from its own point of view.
• Cultural Ecology examines the linkage between the culture and the physical environment.
• Sociobiology rests on the idea that natural selection has an interrelationship with behavior and social characteristics.
• Hypothesis-Testing Orientation: consider a hypothesis and work to test it, retest it and explanations must be tested and supported.

In conclusion, anthropology, as sociology, is a social science which is relatively new, and is overcoming intense specialization, seeking to expand in interpretation as new data are collected, and new techniques are perfected.

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