The selectivity of social learning and the tempo of cultural evolution

Journal of Evolutionary Psychology

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 125-141

  Bentley, R ^a   O'Brien, Michael ^b  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI ST LOUIS   (United States)

Author keywords

"Tasmania effect"; extreme value theory; social learning; tipping points

Indexed keywords

EID: 79959734527     PISSN: 17892082     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1556/JEP.9.2011.18.1     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Anderson, P. W. & Abrahams, E. (2009): Machines fall short of revolutionary science. Science, 324, 1515-1516.
2. Beinhocker, E. (2006): The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
3. Bentley, R. A. (2008): Random drift versus selection in academic vocabulary. PLoS ONE, 3(8), e3057.
4. Bentley, R. A., Hahn, M. W. & Shennan, S. J. (2004): Random drift and culture change. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 271, 1443-1450. (Pubitemid 38943071)
5. Bentley, R. A., Ormerod, P. & Batty, M. (2010): Evolving social influence in large populations. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, DOI: 10.1007/s00265-010-1102-1.
6. Bentley, R. A. & Shennan, S. J. (2003): Cultural evolution and stochastic network growth. American Antiquity, 68, 459-485.
7. Berger, J. & Le Mens, G. (2009): How adoption speed affects the abandonment of cultural tastes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 8146-8150.
8. Bolender, J. (2007): Prehistoric cognition by description: A Russellian approach to the Upper Paleolithic. Biology and Philosophy, 22, 383-399.
9. Borgatti, S. P., Mehra A., Brass, D. J. & Labianca, G. (2009): Network analysis in the social sciences. Science, 323, 892-895.
10. Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985): Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11. Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1996): Why culture is common, but cultural evolution is rare. Proceedings of the British Academy, 88, 77-93.
12. Boyd R. & Richerson, P. J. (2005): The Origin and Evolution of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13. Christakis, N. A. & Fowler, J. H. (2009): Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Boston: Little, Brown.
14. Dunbar R. I. M. (1993): Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 681-735.
15. Durkheim E. (1898): Reprsentations individuelles et reprsentations collectives. Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale, 6, 273-302.
16. Everett D. L. (2005): Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirah". Current Anthropology, 46, 621-646.
17. Frank, S. A. (2009): The common patterns of nature. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22, 1563-1585.
18. Gabora, L. (2008): Mind. In: R. A. Bentley, H. D. G. Maschner and C. Chippindale (eds): Handbook of Archaeological Theories. Lanham, MD: AltaMira, pp. 283-296.
19. Galef B. G., JR. & Laland, K. N. (2005): Social learning in animals: Empirical studies and theoretical models. BioScience 55, 489-499. (Pubitemid 40748383)
20. Geary, D. C. (2007): Educating the evolved mind: Conceptual foundations for an evolutionary educational psychology. In: J. S. Carlson and J. R. Levin (eds): Educating the Evolved Mind: Conceptual Foundations for an Evolutionary Educational Psychology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age, pp. 1-99.
21. Gillespie J. H. (2004): Population Genetics: A Concise Guide. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
22. Gordon, P. (2004): Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science, 306, 496-499. (Pubitemid 39372451)
23. Guimerà, R., Uzzi, B., Spiro, J. & Nunes Amaral L. A. (2005): Team assembly mechanisms determine collaboration network structure and team performance. Science, 308, 697-702. (Pubitemid 40594391)
24. Hahn M. W. & Bentley, R. A. (2003): Drift as a mechanism for cultural change: An example from baby names. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 270, S1-S4.
25. Hamilton M. J. & Buchanan, B. (2009): The accumulation of stochastic copying errors causes drift in culturally transmitted technologies: Quantifying Clovis evolutionary dynamics. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28, 55-69.
26. Hayek, F. A. (1949): Individualism and Economic Order. London: Routledge.
27. Henrich J. (2004): Demography and cultural evolution: Why adaptive cultural processes produced maladaptive losses in Tasmania. American Antiquity, 69, 197-214.
28. Henrich J. (2006): Understanding cultural evolutionary models: A reply to Read's critique. American Antiquity, 71, 771-782.
29. Herzog H. A., Bentley, R. A. & Hahn, M. W. (2004): Random drift and large shifts in popularity of dog breeds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 271, S353-S356. (Pubitemid 38998746)
30. Hrdy S. B. (2009): Mothers and Others. Harvard University Press.
31. Hull D. L. (2001): Science and Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32. Hyde, J. S. & Linn, M. C. (2009): Gender similarities in mathematics and science. Science, 314, 599-600. (Pubitemid 44646369)
33. Kandler, A. & Laland, K. N. (2009): An investigation of the relationship between innovation and cultural diversity. Theoretical Population Biology 76, 59-67.
34. King, R. D., Rowland, J., Oliver, S. G., Young, M., Aubrey, W., Byrne E., Liakata, M., Markham, M., Pir, P., Soldatova, L. N., Sparkes, A., Whelan, K. E. & Clare, A. (2009): The automation of science. Science, 324, 85-89.
35. Klein R. (2002): The Dawn of Human Culture. New York: Wiley.
36. Laland, K. N. (2004): Social learning strategies. Learning Behavior, 32, 4-14. (Pubitemid 38585874)
37. Laland, K. N. & Reader, S. M. (2010): Comparative perspectives on human innovation. In: M. J. O'Brien and S. J. Shennan (eds): Innovation in Cultural Systems: Contributions from Evolutionary Anthropology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press pp. 37-51.
38. Levinson S. C. (2005): Comment on "Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirah": Another look at the design features of human language,' by D. L. Everett. Current Anthropology, 46, 637-638.
39. Mesoudi, A. & Lycett, S. J. (2009): Random copying, frequency-dependent copying and culture change. Evolution and Human Behavior 30, 41-48.
40. Mithen, S. J. (1996): The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion, and Science. London: Thames and Hudson.
41. Neiman F. D. (1995): Stylistic variation in evolutionary perspective: Inferences from decorative diversity and interassemblage distance in Illinois Woodland ceramic assemblages. American Antiquity, 60, 7-36.
42. O'Brien, M. J., Lyman, R. L. & Schiffer, M. B. (2005): Archaeology as a Process: Processualism and Its Progeny. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
43. Powell, A., Shennan, S. & Thomas M. G. (2009): Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science, 324, 1298-1301.
44. Renfrew C. & Scarre, C. (eds.) (1998): Cognition and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Symbolic Storage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
45. Richerson P. J. & Boyd, R. (2005): Not by Genes Alone. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
46. Richerson, P. J., Boyd, R. & Bettinger R. L. (2009): Cultural innovations and demographic change. Human Biology, 81, 211-236.
47. Ridley, M. (2010) The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. London: Fourth Estate.
48. Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S. & Watts, D. J. (2006): Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science, 311, 854-856. (Pubitemid 43228850)
49. Shennan, S. (2000): Population, culture history, and the dynamics of change. Current Anthropology, 41, 811-835.
50. Tomasello, M., Kruger, A. & Ratner, H. (1993): Cultural learning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 495-552.
51. Turcotte, D. L. (1997): Fractals and Chaos in Geology and Geophysics (sec. ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
52. Zilho, J. Angelucci, D. E., Badal-Garcéa, E., D'Errico, F., Daniel F., Dayet, L., Douka, K., Higham, T. F. G., Marténez-Sénchez, M. J., Montes-Bernérdez, R., Murciamascar's, S., Prez-Sirvent, C., Roldén-Garcéa, C., Vanhaeren, M., Villaverde, V., Wood, R. & Zapata, J. (2010): Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 1023-1028.