Culture Flashcards
What is symbolic culture?
Ethnic marking => part of social group
Rituals
Normative component => morality, institutions
Function: increase group cohesion despite anonymity
What is material culture
Technology
Function: improved subsistence
Biological definition of culture
Socially transmitted innovations (knowledge, religion, technology etc)
Can produce geographic variation
Presupposes social-learning abilities in nonhumans
What, apart from culture can produce geographic variation?
Ecological and genetic differences
What behaviors are socially transmitted?
• Foraging skills
• Predator recognition
• social behaviors (parenting/sexual behavior)
Why is there no cumulative culture in non-human primates?
(Not specific enough copying?) => rather motivation than capability
Lack of conformity
What is conformity?
Behaving like what you should behave, do something bc someone expects it, rather than what you know is right/true
Conformity in primates?
Preference for colored food changed upon migration
But others don’t expect to conform!
What are functions of conformity?
Informational: locals know better
Social: fit in
When do behaviors count as teaching?
• No (immediate) benefit for knowledgeable individual
• knowledgeable individual modifies her behavior in presence of naïve ind.
• naïve gain information or skills
Prosociality helps to
initiate & maintain cooperation
Evolutionary stable cooperation
• Mutualism (by-product mutualism vs. true mutualism)
• Kin selection (restrict cooperation to related individuals)
•
What does Hamilton’s rule state
Indirect fitness gain from altruistic behavior towards kin
r * B > C
What does kin-selection require?
Kin recognition and kin preference:
• spatial distribution (whoever is in nest, whoever is close by)
• familiarity rule ( whoever has become familiar during early life)
• phenotype matching (innate template)
How can reciprocity evolve?
If altruists take turns giving and receiving benefits
=> reciprocal altruism
Contingency (keep track of help that was received
