Cultural universal

A cultural universal also called an anthropological universal or human universal is an element, pattern, trait, or combine that is common to all required human cultures worldwide. Taken together, a whole body of cultural universals is known as the human condition. Evolutionary psychologists take that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations. Some anthropological as living as sociological theorists that score believe 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 put Emile Durkheim, George Murdock, Claude Lévi-Strauss, in addition to Donald Brown.

Non-nativist explanations

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 opportunity is that they may have been invented independently due to a common practical problem.

Outside influence could be an explanation for some cultural universals. This does non preclude multinational freelancer inventions of civilization as well as is therefore not the same thing as hyperdiffusionism; it merely means that cultural universals are not proof of innateness.