A
cultural universal (also called an
anthropological universal or
human universal), as discussed by
Emile Durkheim,
George Murdock,
Claude Lévi-Strauss,
Donald Brown and others, is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all
human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the
human condition.
Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations. Some anthropological and sociological theorists that take 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".