How much cultural variation around the globe is explained by ecology?

Area of Science:

• Human Ecology
• Cultural Anthropology
• Evolutionary Psychology

Background:

• Human cultures exhibit significant variation.
• The influence of ecological factors on cultural diversity is a key area of research.
• Understanding the drivers of cultural variation is crucial for evolutionary and anthropological studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the extent to which ecological variables explain human cultural variation.
• To investigate the impact of different statistical metrics of ecological conditions on cultural variation.
• To determine if ecological explanations account for variation beyond spatial and cultural autocorrelation.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the EcoCultural Dataset, incorporating nine ecological variables and 66 cultural variables (personality traits, values, norms).
• Employed various statistical metrics (current levels, average levels, unpredictability across time) for ecological variables.
• Analyzed cultural variation explained by ecological factors, controlling for spatial and cultural autocorrelation.

Main Results:

• Ecology explains a substantial portion of human cultural variation.
• The amount of explained variation is dependent on the ecological metrics used.
• Current and average levels of ecological conditions explained the most variance (16% and 20%, respectively).

Conclusions:

• Physical and social ecologies are significant predictors of human cultural variation.
• Ecological factors provide a robust explanation for cultural differences, independent of spatial and temporal factors.
• The choice of statistical metric for ecological variables influences the magnitude of explained cultural variance.