Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T16:02:36.694Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural evolution in more than two dimensions: Distinguishing social learning biases and identifying payoff structures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2014

Alex Mesoudi
Alex Mesoudi*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom. a.a.mesoudi@durham.ac.ukhttps://sites.google.com/site/amesoudi2/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Bentley et al.’s two-dimensional conceptual map is complementary to cultural evolution research that has sought to explain population-level cultural dynamics in terms of individual-level behavioral processes. Here, I qualify their scheme by arguing that different social learning biases should be treated distinctly, and that the transparency of decisions is sometimes conflated with the actual underlying payoff structure of those decisions.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 91 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bentley, R. A., Hahn, M. W. & Shennan, S. J. (2004) Random drift and culture change. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271:1443–50.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. & Feldman, M. W. (1981) Cultural transmission and evolution. Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Gintis, H. (2007) A framework for the unification of the behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30(1):1–61.Google Scholar
Griffiths, T. L., Kalish, M. L. & Lewandowsky, S. (2008) Theoretical and empirical evidence for the impact of inductive biases on cultural evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363:3503–14.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A. (2008) An experimental simulation of the “copy-successful-individuals” cultural learning strategy: Adaptive landscapes, producer–scrounger dynamics, and informational access costs. Evolution and Human Behavior 29:350–63.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A. (2009) The cultural dynamics of copycat suicide. PLoS ONE 4:e7252.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A. (2011) Cultural evolution: How Darwinian theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A. & Lycett, S. J. (2009) Random copying, frequency-dependent copying and culture change. Evolution and Human Behavior 30:41–48.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A. & O'Brien, M. J. (2008a) The cultural transmission of Great Basin projectile-point technology I: An experimental simulation. American Antiquity 73:3–28.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A. & O'Brien, M. J. (2008b) The cultural transmission of Great Basin projectile point technology II: An agent-based computer simulation. American Antiquity 73:627–44.Google Scholar
Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A. & Laland, K. N. (2006) Towards a unified science of cultural evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29:329–83.Google Scholar
O'Brien, M. J., Darwent, J. & Lyman, R. L. (2001) Cladistics is useful for reconstructing archaeological phylogenies: Palaeoindian points from the southeastern United States. Journal of Archaeological Science 28:1115–36.Google Scholar
Richerson, P. J. & Boyd, R. (2005) Not by genes alone. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wright, S. (1932) The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding and selection in evolution. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Genetics 1:356–66.Google Scholar