Cultural evolution: integrating psychology, evolution and culture. (February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mesoudi, Alex
• Is Part Of: Current opinion in psychology. Volume 7(2016)
• Page Start: 17
• Page End: 22
• Publication Date: 2016-02
• Subjects: Psychology -- Periodicals; 150.5
• DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.07.001
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2352-250X

Abstract

Highlights: Humans have colonised and transformed every terrestrial environment on the planet. This ecological success can be attributed to our capacity for cultural evolution. High fidelity social learning allows the preservation/accumulation of cultural traits. Learning biases govern who people learn from and what they learn. These biases scale up to explain larger patterns of cultural diversity and stability. Abstract : Cultural evolution represents a body of theory and findings premised on the notions that, (i), human cultural change constitutes a Darwinian evolutionary process that shares key characteristics with (but is not identical in details to) genetic evolution; (ii), this second evolutionary process has been instrumental in our species' dramatic ecological success by allowing the rapid, open-ended generation and accumulation of technology, social institutions, knowledge systems and behavioural practices far beyond the complexity of other species' socially learned behaviour; and (iii), our psychology permits, and has been shaped by, this cultural evolutionary process, for example, through socio-cognitive mechanisms such as imitation, teaching and intentionality that support high-fidelity social learning, and biases governing from whom and what we learn.