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Published on: September 28, 2018
The cognitive foundations of cultural stability and diversity
Dan Sperber1, Lawrence A Hirschfeld
1Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS, EHESS, and ENS, Paris, France. dan@sperber.com
Abstract:
The existence and diversity of human cultures are made possible by our species-specific cognitive capacities. But how? Do cultures emerge and diverge as a result of the deployment, over generations and in different populations, of general abilities to learn, imitate and communicate? What role if any do domain-specific evolved cognitive abilities play in the emergence and evolution of cultures? These questions have been approached from different vantage points in different disciplines. Here we present a view that is currently developing out of the converging work of developmental psychologists, evolutionary psychologists and cognitive anthropologists.
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