Cultural universals are the elements of culture, society, language, behaviour and mind that, according to anthropological studies carried out so far, we share in practically all human societies.

The American anthropologist Donald E. Brown is perhaps the most recognized author in the development of the theory of cultural universals. His proposal emerges as an important critique of the way in which anthropology understood culture and human nature, and develops an explanatory model that recovers the continuity between both.

Here we explain how the theory of cultural universals emerges and what the six types proposed by Brown are.

Critique of cultural relativism

Brown proposed the concept of cultural universals with the intention of analyzing the relationships between human nature and human culture and how they had been approached from traditional anthropology.

Among other things, he remained sceptical about the tendency to divide the world between a dimension called “culture” and another one opposed to the one we call “nature”. In this opposition, anthropology had tended to place its analyses on the side of culture , strongly associated with variability, indetermination, arbitrariness (which are the opposite elements to those of nature), and which are what determine us as human beings.

Brown positions himself more towards understanding culture as a continuum with nature, and seeks to reconcile the idea of the variability of cultures and behaviors, with the constants of biological nature that also constitute us as human beings. For Brown, societies and cultures are the product of interactions between individuals and individuals and their environment.

Types of universals

In his theory, Brown develops different theoretical and methodological proposals to integrate the universals as explanatory theoretical models on human beings. These models allow to establish connections between biology, human nature and culture .

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Among other things, it proposes that there are 6 types of universals: absolute, apparent, conditional, statistical and group.

1. Universal absolutes

These universals are the ones that anthropology has found in all people regardless of their specific culture. For Brown, many of the universals do not exist separately from the other universals, but are expressions of the different areas at the same time, for example the concept of “property” which expresses at the same time a form of social and cultural organization, and also a behavior.

Some examples that the same author puts in the cultural area are the myths, the legends, the daily routines , the concepts of “luck”, the body adornments, the production of tools.

In the area of language, some absolute universals are grammar, phonemes, metonymy, antonyms. In the social area, the division of work, social groups, play, ethnocentrism.

In the behavioral area, aggression, facial gestures, rumors; and in the mental area, emotions, dualistic thinking, fears, empathy, psychological defense mechanisms.

2. Apparent universals

These universals are the ones for which there have been only a few exceptions. For example, the practice of making fire is a partial universal, because there is different evidence that very few people used it, however, they did not know how to make it. Another example is the prohibition of incest , which is a rule present in different cultures, with some exceptions.

3. Universal Conditionals

The conditional universal is also called implied universal, and refers to a cause-and-effect relationship between the cultural element and its universality. In other words, a particular condition must be met for the element to be considered universal.

The background of the conditional universals is a causal mechanism that becomes a norm . A cultural example could be the preference for the use of one of the two hands (the right, in the West).

4. Universal statistics

Statistical universals are those that occur constantly in apparently unrelated societies, but are not absolute universals because they seem to occur randomly . For example, the different names with which the “pupil” is called in different cultures, since they all refer to a small person.

5. Universal groups

Group universals are those elements or situations in which a limited set of options explains the possibilities of variation between cultures. For example, the international phonetic alphabet, which represents a finite possibility of communicating through common signs and sounds, and which is found in different ways in all cultures .

In this case there are two main categories for analysing the universals: emic and etic (derived from the English terms “phonemic” and “phonetic”) which serve to distinguish the elements that are expressly represented in people’s cultural conceptions, and the elements that are present but not explicitly.

For example, we all speak according to some acquired grammatical rules . However, not all people have a clear or explicit representation of what “grammatical rules” are.

Bibliographic references:

  • Becerra, K. Binder, T and Bidegain, I. (1991). Review by Brown, D. (1991). Human Universals. McGraw Hill. Retrieved 12 June 2018. Available at http://www.teodorowigodski.cl/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Human-Universals.pdf.
  • Brown, D. (2004). Human universals, human nature & human culture. Daedalus, 133(4): 47-54.