Cultural Evolution

Question 1

2 things that lead to cultural variation

Answer 1

• Proximal causes: something that has direct or immediate effect on your observation
• • Ex. availability of technology/weaponry
• Distal causes: initial differences that lead to effects over long periods of time
• • Ex. Neolithic revolution

Question 2

Neolithic revolution

Answer 2

• domestication of nutritious plants and productive, nutritious animals that reproduce quickly
• • Animals can be used for labour
• • Reliable source of food from grains and animals
• • Excess nutritious food that can be stored for future consumption
• • Fewer people needed for food production; others can discover new technology and become specialists
• • Food and animals spread around the continents

Question 3

main argument of Guns Germs and Steel

Answer 3

• European economic, military, technological, and political power came about because of geographical luck, and not because the Europeans were in any way culturally or racially superior to people of other parts of the world
• ex. Europeans lived in the fertile crescent which allowed agriculture to develop; had lived in densely-populated areas with animals so had developed resistance to more diseases

Question 4

cultural evolution

Answer 4

• Cultural evolution uses principles of biological evolution to explain cultural variability/similarities around the world
• • Ex. having dumplings in various cultures, but with slight differences based on where people live and what protein is available
• Use of mathematical models to explain likelihood of individual learning vs. social learning in different environments

Question 5

2 main different types of papers

Answer 5

• Empirical papers (based on new studies, new data; provide new information to the field)
• Review papers (meta-analyses, literature reviews)

Question 6

meta-analysis vs. literature review

Answer 6

• Meta-analyses: statistical summary of previously-published papers
• • Arrive at average of size of effect
• • Best estimate of what the true size of the effect should be
• • Very powerful form of analysis in psychology
• • Purpose: summarize current knowledge
• Literature review: summary of existing information in a novel way
• • Information reorganized into novel framework
• • Purpose: clarify structure of existing knowledge

Question 7

language phylogeny

Answer 7

• Researchers can create phylogeny trees of cultural traits
• Based on biological evolutionary models
• Reconstructed ancestry tree
• Visually represents cultural evolution and diversity
• Based on shared characteristics, applied to different aspects of culture (most commonly language)

Question 8

Alex Masoudi article: what claims is he making?

Answer 8

That learning and cognition has been key for humans’ evolutionary success, and that this includes a “cultural niche” (important traits primarily acquired via social learning and evolve culturally)

Question 9

Alex Masoudi article: what evidence does he provide in support of his claims?

Answer 9

• Humans have high-fidelity social learning that allows us to accumulate cultural traits over successive generations → aka: cumulative cultural evolution (traits inherited from person to person via social learning rather than genetics)
• • Ex. Human infants are able to effectively copy others
• Cooperation in a society allows for better survivability of that society

Question 10

Alex Masoudi article: cultural micro-evolution and its sub-types

Answer 10

• the details of who people learn from, how they learn, and other cognitive process that change cultural traits over times
• • Content biases: certain traits more likely to be acquired due to their adaptive intrinsic characteristics (ie. acquiring info about social interactions)
• • Model-based biases: people prefer to learn from those with skill/success, prestige, age, etc.
• • Frequency-dependent biases: people copy traits based on its frequency in the population (ie. conformity)
• • Guided variation: transforming an acquired trait and passing it on to others

Question 11

Alex Masoudi article: cultural macro-evolution and its sub-types

Answer 11

• large-scale consequences of the learning biases
• • Cumulative cultural evolution: clear accumulation of knowledge over successive generations
• • Cultural phylogenies: cultural traits may exhibit the same tree-like phylogenetic structure as genetic ones
• • Cross-cultural regularities: regularities occur where individuals all share similar cognitive features and transform things in a similar direction (ex. Colour terminology)
• • Large-scale cooperation: cooperating with groups of non-kin, with no possibility of reciprocity

Question 12

cultural evolution vs. biological evolution

Answer 12

• Biological is slower and primarily based on vertical transmission; cultural is much faster and occurs through vertical, horizontal, and oblique transmission
• Several proposals to explain how cultural evolution occurs:
• • Memetic view
• • Tomasello’s cultural learning view aka theory of social learning

Question 13

memetic view: basics

Answer 13

• A meme is to cultural evolution what a gene is to biological evolution
• A unit of cultural transmission which propagates itself by imitation
• A meme may be of any size, ranging from a single word to a complex behavioural pattern
• • Ex. God, Music, Halloween (includes other memes like the phrase “trick or treat”, costumes, etc.) → basically anything we say, do, create

Question 14

processes involved in the memetic view

Answer 14

• replication
• variation
• selection
• all processes involved in cultural evolution parallel those involved in genetic evolution

Question 15

memetic processes: replication

Answer 15

• when a meme is copied through imitation
• allows for vertical, horizontal, and oblique transmission (making meme replication very fast)
• memes are relatively high in fecundity

Question 16

memetic processes: variation

Answer 16

• when a meme undergoes mutation (ie. modifications through misinterpretation, embellishment) or recombination (ie. two or more memes are combined)
• new memes are produced in this manner, leading to “innovations”
• both mutation and recombination are common in transmission, so memes are high in fidelity at first, then low over time

Question 17

memetic processes: selection

Answer 17

• When different memes have different rates of retention in memory
• Those that are retained are more likely to be spread to others
• Memes more likely to be retained if they are associated with survival/reproductive advantage, economic advantage, positive affect, fear, easy communicability

Question 18

equilibrium

Answer 18

• Different environments, with different selection pressures, select for different adaptations
• Traditionally used to study evolutionary biology
• The higher the frequency of people exhibiting characteristic, the higher the expected frequency of people exhibiting characteristic

Question 19

equilibrium: graph

Answer 19

• on a graph, forms an S shape
• At the ends of the frequency, you’ll see a plateau, which indicates equilibrium states (aka: norms) → things nobody is doing and we don’t expect them to (at one end) or things that everyone is doing and we expect them to (at other end)
• At middle of S is the inflection point/tipping point → in order create a norm/equilibrium, things need to be pushed beyond this point