Culture consists of both ideas and behaviors. One area of debate within anthropology focuses on the direction of the influence between the two. Some feel that behaviors give rise to and guide ideas; others say that ideas give rise to and guide behaviors. An examination of cultural phenomena shows that the influence is in both directions. Practical behaviors become translated into ideas that become part of integrated, holistic cultural systems. Ideas then influence behaviors, since behaviors must meet practical needs as well as remain consistent with and help maintain the cultural system itself. This mutual influence can be demonstrated more persuasively when entire cultural systems (or at least large portions of them) are examined.

A long-standing question in anthropology and other human-oriented disciplines relates to the relative influences of biology and culture on human behavior patterns. As with the issue above, there have been two extreme views. One claims that culture creates minor modifications in some biologically based and naturally selected-for behaviors. The opposite view says that biology has little or no real influence and that human behaviors are entirely cultural. Again, examining behaviors seems to show a complex interaction between biology and culture. While the immediate motivation for and function of our behavior patterns relate to their place within our cultural systems, those general patterns themselves may have been selected for in our precultural stage because they conferred an adaptive—that is, a reproductive—advantage. Variations in behavior patterns such as marriage, incest taboo, and language are explained by variations in cultural systems. That there is marriage, incest avoidance, and the ability to produce symbolic language have, at their base, a biological explanation.