Cultural Evolution Flashcards
Main principle in the field of cultural evolution
culture evolves in a Darwinian manner through a process of variation, competition, and inheritance
How is the transmission of cultural information similar to the transmission of biological information?
Like variation in biological information, some cultural information may be better in specific environments
Culture
Information that is transmitted from one individual to another via social learning, or that is invented de novo by an individual independently and not transmitted
Do animals have culture? Explain
-yes, animals have culture and may engage in strange behavior because they’re teaching each other ther how to solve complex problems
Example of animal culture
-humpback whale vaccum technique to catch krill (whales in other regions don’t know this technqiue)
-trash parrots learning how to open trash lids for foods (different flocks open them in different ways)
What are the four most important questions in cultural evolution?
- How are cultural traits CHANGED during transmission?
- How and why do cultural traits ACCUMULATE over time?
- What SOCIAL LEARNING BIASES do individuals use?
- What are the POPULATION LEVEL consequences of different social learning biases?
How cultural traits change during transmission
-transmission chain method
-mutations aren’t random– social brain theories
Transmission Chain Method
Traits change through the process of learning and copying
As information was transmitted, traits tend to lose detail and increasingly resemble the individual’s preconceied notions
Mutation aren’t random
social information in stories was transmitted more accurately and lost less frequently than nonsocial information
social brain theories – posit that human cognition evolved primarily to deal with social infromation
We needed big brains to be able to process social information
How and why do cultural traits accumulate over time?
-cumulative cultural evolution
-transmission chain method
-mechanism of social learning
Cumulative cultural evolution
traits that have been gradually modified and built upon over successive generations
Transmission chain method
for the question “how and why do cultural traits accumulate over time?”
Individuals solve some tasks with clear goals and measures of success. Onlookers then try to solve the same problem. Quality of solution improves over time.
Mechanism of social learning
Imitation: copy behavior (e.g. motor actions)
Emulation: copying end products (e.g. Samsung copying apple phone)
Teaching: transmission of explicit advice
What does the question “what social learning biases do individuals use” focus on?
who do we tend to copy and why
“What social learning biases do individuals use?” components
- Social learning biases
- Categories of biases
Social learning biases
rules that people use when copying other individuals
what or whom we copy
Categories of biases
- Content biases
- Model biases
- Frequency dependent biases
Content biases
individuals pick a particular trait over others because of predisposed preferences for a charcteristic of that trait
e.g. warning about dangerous animals on a trail
Model biases
individuals adopt traits because of a characteristic of the person who knows the trait
e.g. prestige bias
Frequency dependent bias
individuals take up trait because of the trait’s relative popularity or unpopularity, compared to other traits in their population
e.g. girl in mean girls
*What are the population-level consequences of different social-learning biases?
Social learning biases can contribute to cultural traits becoming widespread until it becomes advantageous to not adopt the trait
e.g. the popularity of baby names
Important info for the question “What are the population-level consequences of different social-learning biases?”
-Models, mathematical tools, and experiments can elucidate the different traits frequencies across populations
-frequency dependent selection
frequency dependent selection
an evolutionary process where the fitness of a phenotype depends on how common it is in the population
*Models of cultural evolution
can set up mathematical models or lab experiments to test how a certain set of assumptions hold up in the real world, and provide a level of precision that is unattainable through purely verbal models
e.g. Under which conditions do grab a bag of chips or share? How do people behave in different environments? Make grab the bag because you want to look tough in a particular setting? May be polite in another setting
Briefly explain the Hawk-Dove game
“Hawks” are aggressive and fight for resources, risking injury
“Doves” are non-aggressive and will share or yield resources to avoid conflict
When is dove behavior more appropriate
In an environment with abundant resources, dove behavior may be more advantageous because the cost of conflict is higher than the benefit of winning a resource
*When is hawk behavior more advantageous
In a resource scarce environment, hawk behavior might be more advantageous because the reward for the resource outweighs the conflict
How can the hawk-dove game be used as a framework to study the population level consequences of different social learning biases?
-How different strategies such as cooperation and aggression can spread within a population
-How these strategies might be influenced by environmental factors such as resource abundance or scarcity
-The dynamics between aggression and cooperation in a competitive environment
e.g. aggressive male baboons died off from tainted meat and left non-aggressive females and males – tribe shifted to peaceful cooperation rather than aggression. males who subsequently joined the group learned to behave peacefully
What are the population-level consequences of different social-learning biases? components
-role of mathematical models
-frequency dependent selection
-hawk-dove game
