Evolutionary Psychology - Lecture 3: What can evolution teach us about human culture?

Question 1

Dictator Game

Answer 1

It captures a decision by a single player: to send money to another or not and how much they want to give to the other.

Question 2

The way people behave across cultures varies

Answer 2

In the dictator game, depending on one’s background/origin/culture, it was found people would be willing to give different amounts of money to another person

Question 3

Muller-Lyer illusion

Answer 3

The Muller-Lyer illusion is a well-known optical illusion in which two lines of the same length appear to be of different lengths (due to position of arrows at the ends)
-> Results of experiment show that basic cognition varies across cultures

Question 4

Psychology’s dirty secret

Answer 4

“A 2008 survey of the top psychology journals found that 96% of subjects were from Western industrialized countries —which house just 12% of the world’s population.” ⎼ Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010) Nature

Question 5

What are most psych subjects?

Answer 5

WEIRD
Western
Educated
Industrialised - come from these societies
Rich
Democratic

Question 6

The pitfalls of WEIRD psychology

Answer 6

Psychologists often implicitly ignore cultural variation, or assume that the population sampled is representative of all humanity.
•“Weperceive…”
•“People are biased in their reasoning about…”
•Who is we? Which people?

Question 7

What is transmitted culture?

Answer 7

Cultural differences that arise due to information transmitted via social learning
-> Humans are culturally diverse - languages, environments

Question 8

Foraging Aka pygmies in Central African Republic

Answer 8

50 life-skills: hunting, gathering, food preparation, infant care, house and tool maintenance, sex and family, sharing, rituals, dancing, singing

Question 9

Foraging Aka pygmies in Central African Republic - Asked: WHO did you learn these skills from and WHEN?

Answer 9

80% of skills learned from parents
Sex differences in timing
Sex differences in teaching
Important survival traits inherited vertically - parent to offspring
-> Lots of vital info about living and how to prosper in forest environment is being passed on vertically - inherit vital, cultural capital in this way

Question 10

Burke and Wills - culture is adaptive

Answer 10

Of 19 ppl who set out on voyage -> died, starved - only 1 person made it back to Melbourne -> Both Burke and Wills died -> didn’t have culturally inherited knowledge -> couldn’t survive in aboriginal enviro
-> Culture is both passed on/inherited/transmitted and passes on vital info

Question 11

2 types of human adaptations to social learning

Answer 11

Strategies for identifying the most reliable social information
•Conformist bias - copy the majority
•Prestige bias - copy the successful

Question 12

What are the two biases?

Answer 12

2 cognitive mechanisms which ensure fidelity and utility of cultural information

Question 13

Overimitation

Answer 13

Copying a behaviour, even when that behaviour appears irrelevant -> thinking it could be useful in passing on cultural info with high fidelity

Question 14

World Map

Answer 14

Word for two is very similar in areas in close proximity to NZ and going further out also show forms that are quite similar
-> must have been due to process of descent with modification

Question 15

Language family trees

Answer 15

Track spread and timing of specific migration -> cultures evolve

Question 16

Descent with modification

Answer 16

Language family tree tracks expansion pulses and pauses in Pacific settlement

Question 17

3 requirements for evolution via natural selection

Answer 17

Variation, heritability, differential fitness

Question 18

Variation

Answer 18

Different individuals in a population have different morphologies, physiologies, and behaviors

Question 19

Heritability

Answer 19

There is a correlation between parents and offspring in the contribution of each to future generations

Question 20

Differential Fitness

Answer 20

If resources are limiting different phenotypes have different rates of survival and reproduction in different environments .

Question 21

Natural selection variations evolve in…

Answer 21

culture and biology

3 requirements for natural selection acts on both cultural variance and genetic variance

Question 22

Example of cultural variance

Answer 22

Clothing - fashionable at different times/periods

-> Variation, inheritance, certain things designed in better ways - different properties of cultural variance

Question 23

Memes

Answer 23

“tunes, ideas, clothes, fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain by a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” - Richard Dawkins 1976

Question 24

Memes useful for biological fitness?

Answer 24

May or may not be -> cultural fitness not necessarily the same as biological fitness
-> Interests of meme and its replication may not = fitness of its host e.g. smoking is not good biologically but is good culturally

Question 25

Selfish meme

Answer 25

• Compete for limited space
• Cultural selection for best replicators
• Memes can enhance or reduce our chances of survival
• Cultural fitness ≠ genetic fitness
• Consider smoking or vows of celibacy
• An entirely new evolving system

Question 26

Religion as a selfish meme - Richard Dawkins

Answer 26

Inhabits minds and are pathological in society
-> mechanisms to make sure copied with high fidelity - blend in with views
–Copying fidelity •Sacred texts
•Prohibitions against questioning the
tenets of the religion
•Proscriptions against tolerance
towards other worldviews
-> outcompete other kinds of views e.g. heaven and hell
–Replication •mission/conversion system
•Exhortations to be fruitful and multiply
•You will go to heaven if you believe
•You will go to hell if you do not

Question 27

Is religion a cultural adaption for group survival?

Answer 27

Belief in a powerful deity who will punish immoral behaviour helps individuals trust others in their group, promoting cooperation
-> Religion primes ppl to act in a pro-social way

Question 28

Religious priming as pro-social example

Answer 28

Religious priming increases sharing in a dictator game

Question 29

A cultural adaptation for group survival in harsh and unpredictable conditions?

Answer 29

Belief in moralising deities more likely in arid conditions
Life is harder -> resources dry, unpredictable -> more belief in God than well-off areas
-> Need Gods to enforce social norms and encourage pro-sociality
-> Helps these ppl/cultures exist and prosper in harsh enviros

Question 30

What is religion a product of?

Answer 30

Cultural evolution that helps human groups to cooperate and therefore prosper in different ecologies across the globe

Question 31

What has led to cultural diversity?

Answer 31

Humans all around the world undergoing cultural evolution

Question 32

Should Psych be WEIRD?

Answer 32

No - to really succeed and understand all mysteries of human mind, it needs to thoroughly embrace that kind of diversity, rather than just study 12% of WEIRD ppl - need to understand true diversity of psychologies across the planet