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How Darwinian is cultural evolution?

Nicolas Claidière1, Thomas C Scott-Phillips, Dan Sperber

  • 1CNRS, Fédération de recherche 3C, Laboratoire de psychologie cognitive, Université d'Aix - Marseille, , 3 Place Victor Hugo, Bât. 9, Case D, 13331 Marseille cedex, France.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
|April 2, 2014
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Cultural evolution can be better understood through cultural attraction, a populational and evolutionary model. This framework generalizes existing selectional and replicative models for a more comprehensive view of cultural change.

Keywords:
cultural attractioncultural evolutionculturepopulation thinking

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary studies
  • Cultural dynamics
  • Theoretical modeling

Background:

  • Population thinking, inspired by Darwin, views culture as evolving item frequencies.
  • Current cultural evolution models primarily use selectional frameworks, potentially overlooking transmission mechanisms.
  • Existing models include evolutionary, selectional, and replicative subtypes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To introduce and formalize the concept of cultural attraction as a more comprehensive model for cultural evolution.
  • To address limitations in current selectional models by incorporating the constructive aspects of cultural transmission.
  • To propose a generalized framework that encompasses selection as a specific case of attraction.

Main Methods:

  • Developing a theoretical framework based on population thinking and Darwinian principles.
  • Introducing the concept of cultural attraction, which is inherently populational and evolutionary.
  • Formalizing cultural attraction and demonstrating its relationship to selectional models.

Main Results:

  • Cultural attraction is presented as a populational and evolutionary process.
  • Selection is identified as a specific, conditional form of cultural attraction.
  • A novel, elementary formalization of cultural attraction is provided.

Conclusions:

  • Cultural attraction offers a more nuanced understanding of cultural evolution than purely selectional models.
  • Generalizing models to include attraction is crucial for accurately capturing cultural transmission.
  • The proposed framework provides a foundation for future research into the mechanisms of cultural change.