Donald E. Brown - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Donald E.. Marrón

Human universals, human nature
& human culture

Human universals–of which hun-

dreds have been identi½ed–consist of
those features of culture, sociedad, lan-
guage, comportamiento, and mind that, so far as
the record has been examined, are found
among all peoples known to ethnogra-
phy and history. After presenting some
of the basic conceptions and problems
concerning such universals per se–their
kinds and causes and the methodologi-
cal and disciplinary considerations that
have shaped their study–I will explore
some of the issues in how human univer-
sals relate to human nature and human
cultura.

I will begin with some examples. En
the cultural realm, human universals
include myths, legends, daily routines,
normas, concepts of luck and precedent,
body adornment, and the use and pro-
duction of tools; in the realm of lan-
guage, universals include grammar, pho-
nemes, polysemy, metonymy, antonyms,

Donald E.. Brown is professor emeritus of anthro-
pology at the University of California, Santa Bar-
bara. His books include “Hierarchy, Historia, y
Human Nature: The Social Origins of Historical
Consciousness” (1988) and “Human Universals”
(1991).

and an inverse ratio between the fre-
quency of use and the length of words;
in the social realm, universals include a
division of labor, social groups, age grad-
En g, the family, kinship systems, ethno-
centrism, play, exchange, cooperation,
and reciprocity; in the behavioral realm,
universals include aggression, gestures,
gossip, and facial expressions; en el
realm of the mind, universals include
emotions, dichotomous thinking, wari-
ness around or fear of snakes, empathy,
and psychological defense mechanisms.
Many universals do not fall neatly in-
to one or another of these conventional
realms, but cut across them. Kinship ter-
minologies (en Inglés, the set of terms
that includes ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ ‘brother,'
‘sister,’ ‘cousin,’ etc.) are simultaneously
social, cultural, and linguistic. The con-
cept of property is social and cultural.
Revenge is both behavioral and social.
Lying and conversational turn-taking
are simultaneously behavioral, social,
and linguistic. Many behavioral univer-
sals almost certainly have distinctive,
even dedicated, neural underpinnings,
and thus are universals of mind too.

A distinction among universals that
½gures large in anthropological thought
is that between ‘emic’ and ‘etic.’ These
palabras (derived from the linguistic terms
‘phonemic’ and ‘phonetic’) distinguish

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Donald E..
Marrón
en
humano
naturaleza

features that are overtly or consciously
represented in a people’s own cultural
conceptions from features that are pres-
ent but not a part of the overt or con-
scious local cultural conceptions. De este modo
every people has a language with gram-
mar, but not all peoples have an overt
cultural representation of the idea of
gramática. Merely having grammar is an
etic fact. If it is culturally represented as
Bueno, then it is an emic fact too. Etically,
everyone has a blood type, but the cul-
tural practice of distinguishing between
blood types (as in the case of those Jap-
anese beliefs that link blood type with
marital compatibility) is far from uni-
versalles. Emic universals are probably
much rarer than etic universals.

Many universals subdivide into yet
otros. Thus tools are a universal, y
so too are some general kinds of tools
(pounders, cutters, containers, etc.). El
facial expression of emotion is a univer-
sal, and so too are smiles, frowns, y
other particular expressions.

While some universals are or seem to
be relatively simple, others are complex.
Ethnocentrism and romantic love are
examples: both are best understood as
complexes or syndromes rather than
simple traits or behaviors.

Many universals have a collective rath-

er than individual referent. Thus music
and dance are found in all societies, pero
not all individuals dance or make music.
Yet other universals are found in all
(normal) individuals, although some-
times only in one sex or the other or in
particular age ranges. Thus women ev-
erywhere predominate in child-care and
on average are younger than their mates.
Children everywhere acquire language
with prodigious skill, but adults do not.
Por otro lado, above the age of in-
fancy everyone employs gestures and
such elementary logical concepts as
‘not,’ ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘kind of,’ ‘greater/less-

es,’ ‘part/whole,’ etc.; everyone classi-
½es; everyone has likes and dislikes.

It is important to distinguish between

kinds of universals. The formally dis-
tinct kinds include absolute universals,
near universals, conditional universals,
statistical universals, and universal
pools.

The universals I listed at the start of
this essay are absolute universals–they
are found among all peoples known to
ethnography and history. A near univer-
sal, por el contrario, is one for which there
are some few known exceptions or for
which there is reason to think there
might be some exceptions. Fire making
and keeping domestic dogs are near uni-
versals, as there are good reports of a
very few peoples who used ½re but did
not know how to make it, or who did not
possess dogs. Many traits are described
as ‘universal or nearly universal’ to ex-
press a note of caution (given the sam-
pling problems to be described below).
Thus the emphasis of percussion or
deep-noted instruments and of the
colors red, white, and black in rituals
around the world should probably be
described as ‘universal or nearly univer-
sal.’

A conditional universal (also called
an implicational universal) is an if-then
universal: if a particular condition is
met, then the trait in question always ac-
companies it. Such universals are analo-
gous to the facultative adaptations of
evolutionary biology, of which callusing
is an example: not all individuals have
calluses, but if there is sustained friction
on particular locations of the hand, decir,
then calluses develop. An example from
culture of a conditional universal is that
if there is a cultural preference for one
hand over the other, then it will be the
right hand that is preferred (as in West-
ern culture, where the right hand is used

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Humano
universals,
humano
naturaleza &
humano
cultura

in greetings and taking oaths). It is the
rule or underlying causal mechanism
that is the real universal in such cases.

A statistical universal is one that may
be far from absolutely universal but that
occurs in unrelated societies at a rate
that seems well above chance. An exam-
ple is the name different peoples give to
the pupil of the eye. In a surprisingly
large number of unrelated languages, él
is a term that refers to a little person; el
apparent explanation for this is the com-
mon experience of seeing a small reflec-
tion of oneself in other people’s eyes.
Although it is something of a stretch to
think of such phenomena as universals,
the explanation for them is drawn not
from cultural particularities but from
universal experience.

A universal pool refers to those situa-

tions in which a limited set of options
exhausts the possible variations from
one society to another. The international
phonetic alphabet, which does not really
cover all the possibilities, nonetheless
serves to express the idea: it consists of
a ½nite possible set of speech sounds or
sound contrasts, from which a selection
is found in each distinct language. Un
early-twentieth-century analysis of kin-
ship terminologies showed that a quite
small set of semantic contrasts accounts
for the differences in kin terms in all or
nearly all societies (a few further con-
trasts have been added since).1 Examples
of the semantic contrasts are sex, cual
distinguishes ‘brother’ from ‘sister,'
‘father’ from ‘mother,’ etc.; and genera-
ción, which distinguishes ‘son’ from
‘father,’ ‘father’ from ‘grandfather,’ etc.

There are severe methodological limi-

tations on what can be known about uni-
versals in general. No one can really

1 Alfred L. Kroeber, “Classi½catory Systems of
Relationship,” Journal of the Royal Anthropologi-
cal Institute 39 (1909): 77–84.

know the conditions in all societies, entonces
any statement about universality is
based on some sort of sampling. In most
cases this sampling has not been rigor-
ous. Además, the precision with
which a real or alleged universal has
been described often leaves much to
be desired, in part because the original
reports or descriptions were provided by
different observers, sometimes at widely
spaced intervals in time. Thus the con-
½dence one can have in particular claims
of universality is quite variable. Given
the costs involved in studying even a sin-
gle society, this range of problems will
persist.

Sin embargo, it should be noted that a

sample as small as two societies–so long
as they are very different–can be highly
suggestive. Thus one can view the docu-
mentary ½lm First Contact and make ob-
servations about what is common to two
highly diverse societies: one’s own mod-
ern society and a previously uncontacted
highland New Guinean society. Austra-
lian prospectors took the footage for this
documentary in the 1930s, when they
were the ½rst outsiders to enter a high
and isolated valley.2 The differences be-
tween the Australians and the isolated
New Guineans are striking, and yet the
two groups also have a lot in common,
much of which would be dif½cult to
trace to cultural borrowing.

In spite of anthropology’s profession-

al charge to study all cultures, cual
uniquely quali½es the discipline to both
identify and verify universals, some an-
thropological practices have not been
congenial to the study of universals.
Notablemente, anthropological attention has
been riveted more surely by differences
between societies than by their com-

2 The making of this documentary is described
in Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, First Con-
tact: New Guinea Highlanders Encounter the Out-
side World (Nueva York: Pingüino, 1987).

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Donald E..
Marrón
en
humano
naturaleza

monalities. Además, that attention has
tended to be limited to surface or mani-
fest universals, those readily available to
observation or readily expressed by their
informants. Innate universals have tend-
ed to be neglected (in extreme cases,
their existence was even denied). Este
neglect was to a large extent overt and
principled, seeming to follow logically
from the view of culture that anthropol-
ogists held throughout much of the
siglo veinte, a view that seemed
to be supported by exaggerated (and in
some cases false) reports of the extraor-
dinary extent to which cultures both dif-
fer from one another and yet decisively
shape human behavior, a view that was
construed to indicate that there must be
pocos, if any, universal features of the hu-
man mind. Como resultado, the anthropologi-
cal study of universals has been spotty at
best, uni½ed neither by theory nor by
sustained inquiry. There is thus ample
reason to suspect that a great many uni-
versals have yet to be identi½ed.

In contrast to anthropologists, psy-
chologists have been much more open
to the discovery of presumably universal
features of the human mind. But only
rarely have psychologists conducted
their research outside the modernized
Western world, so the cross-cultural va-
lidity of the numerous mental processes
and traits they have identi½ed has often
been in doubt. Some cross-cultural re-
search has indeed shown that psycholog-
ical phenomena that one might think are
unaffected by cultural differences–the
perception of certain optical illusions,
for example–are in fact not universal.

A relatively small number of causal

processes or conditions appears to
account for most if not all universals.
These processes or conditions are: 1) el
diffusion of ancient, and generally very
útil, cultural traits; 2) the cultural

reflection of physical facts; y 3) el
operación, estructura, and evolution of
the human mind.

Some universals (the well-authenticat-

ed examples are tool making, the use of
½re, and cooking food) seem to have
existed in the very earliest human popu-
lations and to have spread with humans
to all their subsequent habitats.3

As for the cultural reflection of physi-

cal facts, I have already mentioned the
case of terms for the pupil of the eye, como
well as the cultural preference for the
right hand, which probably reflects the
observation that in all societies most
people are right-handed. I have also
mentioned kin terms, which everywhere
reflect the relationships created through
sexual reproduction–parent-child, sib-
ling, and marital/mate relationships, como
well as the various compounds of these
relaciones. Kin terms often include
más que, or sometimes partially omit,
what such relationships entail, pero en
every language there is a substantial
mapping of the locally named (emic)
relationships onto the actual (etic) kin
relaciones. In all these cases, el
‘world out there,’ so to say, is reflected
in the cultural conceptions of each peo-
ple–even though the reflections vary
in many ways from one society to an-
otro.

Finalmente, there are those universals
whose causes lie more or less directly in
the nature of the human mind, or that
are features of the human mind. el lat-
ter in turn trace causally to the evolu-
tionary past of humanity as a species.
These universals of mind require a more
extended discussion.

3 It is sometimes suggested that there are some
beliefs that have been with humans from the
earliest times not because they are obviously
útil, but because there was little or nothing
to expose their falsity and thus to hinder their
spread.

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Humano
universals,
humano
naturaleza &
humano
cultura

Recalling what was said earlier about

disciplinary differences, it should be
noted that those sociocultural anthro-
pologists who are most quali½ed to doc-
ument universals are not as a rule well
quali½ed to explain them. By training,
most sociocultural anthropologists are
neither psychologists nor biologists. Pero
psychobiology and evolutionary psy-
chology surely are crucial in explaining
many innate universals (and in provid-
ing guidance in the search for further
such universals). The reasoning is sim-
por ejemplo: whatever is constant through all hu-
man societies must be due to something
that goes with people wherever they go;
that would certainly include human na-
ture–and psychobiology and evolution-
ary psychology are the tools for under-
standing human nature.

Examples of universals of psyche or
mind that have been identi½ed through
broad cross-cultural studies are dichot-
omization or binary discriminations,
emotions, classi½cation, elementary
logical concepts, psychological defense
mechanisms, ethnocentrism or in-group
inclinación, and reciprocity as a mechanism for
bonding individuals to one another.
Among the universals formulated
more recently (and more tentatively) en
the light of psychological-evolutionary
propositions are a social-cheater-detect-
ing mechanism, a mental mechanism for
thinking about ‘human kinds,’ and a
facial-template-constructing mecha-
nism that averages the facial features in
the observable population as a baseline
calibration from which optimums of
attractiveness for each sex and age are
calculated. Among the apparent projec-
tions from the latter mechanism is a
preference in males for skin colors in
females that are lighter than the observ-
able average (because in the past relative
lightness of skin correlated with female
fecundity).

The concept of incest avoidance–a
phenomenon now shown to be present
in many animal species as well as hu-
mans–is an evolution-minded rethink-
ing of what had long been one of the
most frequently discussed and prototyp-
ically cultural human universals: el
incest taboo. Similarmente, most anthropolo-
gists long recognized the sentiments
generated by kinship and reciprocity as
universal, but they only received a sound
theoretical understanding when evolu-
tionary biologists illuminated their cru-
cial role in providing solutions to the
Darwinian puzzle of how altruism could
evolve.

The determination and causal expla-
nation of innate universals, predicted or
illuminated by evolutionary theory, es
probably the most active area in the
study of universals at present. But a pur-
suit of causation in the other direction
is vigorously underway too: since it fol-
lows that features of human nature must
provide a continuous and pervasive
structuring of human thought and activ-
ity–and hence of society, cultura, y
historia, however much variation they
exhibit–the ½ndings of psychobiology
and evolutionary psychology have clear
implications for sociocultural particulars
también. In the next section I will discuss
analysis that involves partitioning or
breaking down sociocultural particulars
into the universal elements of which
they are compounds.

In turning now to culture in relation to

universals, I will ignore those universals
that presumably are cultural (como el
ancient and useful inventions and the
cultural reflections) and will focus in-
stead on those that are or may be innate
universals. Hereinafter, ‘universals’ will
refer to those only.

Anthropologists usually de½ne culture
in terms that distinguish it from nature,

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Donald E..
Marrón
en
humano
naturaleza

often in radical contrast: culture versus
naturaleza. De½nitions of culture generally
stress patterns of behavior, pensamiento, feel-
En g, and artifact that are passed on extra-
somatically from individual to individ-
ual, group to group, generation to gener-
ation–meaning patterns that are not in
our genes, patterns that must be learned.
In this vein, culture has often been asso-
ciated with variability, indeterminacy,
arbitrariness–all in contrast to the ½xity
of nature. In extreme views, there is vir-
tually no human nature: culture is the
overwhelming determinant of human
comportamiento, and can be studied with little
or no attention to the human mind.

Other de½nitions of culture correctly
acknowledge a continuous intermixing
of culture with nature. The philosopher-
anthropologist David Bidney, for exam-
por ejemplo, argued that culture should, al menos
en parte, be understood “as the dynamic
process and product of the self-cultiva-
tion of human nature.”4 Others speak of
culture within nature–that is, as a prod-
uct of human nature. Some see culture
as a control or correction of certain fea-
tures of human nature. Yet others see
culture as an extension of the human
mind and body.

There is good reason to distinguish the
cultural in human affairs–but in almost
everything that humans do it is as useful
to insist on either culture or nature as the
source as it is to insist that water is either
hydrogen or oxygen.

But how can the constants of human
nature be reconciled with the manifest
variability of cultures or, para el caso,
with the manifest variability of human
comportamiento? Let me give ½ve answers.
Primero, in any discussion of human
nature a particularly crucial distinction
must be made between functions and ef-

4 David Bidney, “Human Nature and the Cul-
tural Process,” American Anthropologist 49
(1947): 387.

efectos. The set of mental mechanisms
that comprise the human mind, y eso
are thus fundamental to human nature,
were designed by natural selection to
solve particular problems that were re-
current in our evolutionary past and that
are presumably ½nite in number. Cómo-
alguna vez, a mechanism designed to discharge
a particular function may have side ef-
fects or by-products. De este modo, the shape of
the outer ear was designed to gather
sound waves but may also be used to
support glasses or pencils. The anthro-
pologist Lawrence Hirschfeld has pro-
planteado, on the basis of experimental evi-
dencia, that there is a mechanism in the
human mind dedicated to processing
information on human types, como
kin types, the sexes, and occupational
types.5 While this mechanism must have
evolved in conditions where racial dif-
ferentiation was rarely if ever perceived
(due to the short distances our Stone
Age ancestors could have traveled), él
has left the human mind effectively ‘pre-
pared’ to think about races in particular
maneras. Thus racial thinking has flourished
in recent times because it ‘parasitizes’ a
mechanism that was designed for other
purposes.

Human mental mechanisms are

numerous and their effects–which pre-
sumably include a great many emergent
properties stemming from the interac-
tion of the various individual mecha-
nisms–are either potentially in½nite or
in½nitely divisible. In spite of the in½nity
of possible behavioral effects, the mech-
anisms leave traces of their existence:
some are relatively obvious (como en el
uniformity of smiles and frowns), alguno
possess enough observable irregularity
to fuel the nature-nurture debates (como
with many sex differences), y algunos
5 Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, Race in the Making:
Cognición, Cultura, and the Child’s Construction of
Human Kinds (Cambridge, Masa.: con prensa,
1996).

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Humano
universals,
humano
naturaleza &
humano
cultura

reveal themselves only through unusual
observational situations (as in extensive
cross-cultural comparison or in psycho-
logical experimentation). At any rate,
the range of effects that may become
culturally patterned is thus large.

Segundo, many mental mechanisms
motivate us toward goals (mating, en-
gesting food, etc.), which we may meet
through a potentially in½nite variety of
medio. While the many means are ob-
servable, the few goals must be inferred.
The range of means that may become
culturally patterned is, de nuevo, grande.

Tercero, some mental mechanisms in-
volve calibration to environing condi-
ciones. The resulting behaviors are vari-
able by design, though the underlying
mechanism is unitary. These variable re-
sponses may well appear to be cultural.
Por ejemplo, as mentioned earlier, allá
is evidence to suggest that humans have
an evolved mechanism for detecting and
preferring faces that are projections
from the average of what one sees. Desde
that average may vary from one popula-
tion to another, the resulting standards
of beauty would vary too, and this could
easily be interpreted as cultural differ-
ence.

Cuatro, many adaptations may in
some circumstances conflict with each
otro, so that the resulting behaviors are
compromises. Purely local conditions
may favor compromises in one direction
rather than another. Various peoples
thus ignore the pangs of hunger and
thirst for a time, in order to maintain
the approval of their fasting fellows.

Quinto, as wondrously precise as genetic

replication is, the genes that program
the structure and operation of our minds
and bodies do so in interaction with the
genes’ environment, which can and does
vary. Este, Sucesivamente, results in structures
and operations that differ in varying de-
grees from one individual to another and

from one population to another. En esto
context it is important to note that re-
cent human environments, in almost all
parts of the world, present many condi-
tions that are quite unlike those that pre-
vailed over the long period in which
human nature evolved. Many modern
behaviors–epidemic obesity in environ-
ments rich in processed foods comes to
mind as an example–may have their
analogues more in the bizarre behaviors
of animals in zoos than in what the same
animals do in their natural habitats.
Claramente, local environments account for
many of what are seen as cultural dis-
tinctions between one society and an-
otro.

En suma, observable variation in behav-
ior or culture is entirely compatible with
a panhuman design of the mind (bar-
ring, por supuesto, sex and age differences
that are equally likely to reflect evolu-
tionary design).

Finalmente, let us return to the notion that

innate human universals continuously
and pervasively structure human cul-
tura. To the extent that this is so, nosotros
should be able to do a sort of back engi-
neering on features of society or culture
that allows us to break them down into
their component elements and to trace
their roots back to the aspects of human
nature that gave rise to them. Qué es
the alternative, Por ejemplo, to conclud-
ing that writing, the printing press, el
telegraph, the telephone, and the word
processor are extensions or augmenta-
tions of speech?

And what would be the alternative

explanation for literally millions of
songs, poems, stories, and works of art,
from many parts of the world and over
long periods of time, that celebrate the
attractions between men and women–
except the mind’s preoccupation with
the topic? Perhaps the entire cosmetics

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Donald E..
Marrón
en
humano
naturaleza

industry flows from the same cause.
Ronald Hyam, a historian of colonial-
ismo, has even argued that the sexual
drive was as potent a motivator of colo-
nialism as was economics.6 The virulent
nationalisms and racisms of modern
times may well be ‘hypertrophies’ of an
ethnocentrism that for many millennia
played itself out on a much smaller scale.
What I believe was one of anthropolo-
gy’s great achievements–an assembly of
information about where and when cul-
tural inventions arose around the world
–appeared in Ralph Linton’s mid-centu-
ry book on culture history, The Tree of
Culture.7 Missing there, sin embargo, eran
the roots of that tree in human nature.
The task of tracing those roots–in liter-
ature, las artes, historia, and human af-
fairs in general–is now well begun. Nosotros
can look forward to the time when a
great many cultural features are traced
beyond the time and place of their in-
vention to the speci½c features of human
nature that gave rise to them. El estudio
of human universals will be an impor-
tant component of that task.8

6 Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815
–1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (Lon-
don: B. t. Batsford, 1976). See also Hyam, Em-
pire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Man-
chester: University of Manchester Press, 1990).

7 Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (Nueva York:
Alfredo A.. Knopf, 1955).

8 This paper has bene½ted from comments by
Donald Symons. References for the assertions
made here may be found in Donald E. Marrón,
Human Universals (Nueva York: McGraw-Hill,
1991); Marrón, “Human Nature and History,"
History and Theory 38 (4) (1999): 138–157;
Marrón, “Human Universals and Their Impli-
cations,” in Neil Roughley, ed., Being Humans:
Anthropological Universality and Particularity in
Transdisciplinary Perspectives (Berlina: Walter de
Gruyter, 2000), 156–174.

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