Relevant bibliographies by topics / Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology

Contents

  1. Journal articles
  2. Dissertations / Theses
  3. Books
  4. Book chapters

Academic literature on the topic 'Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology'

Author: Grafiati
Published: 4 June 2021
Last updated: 5 February 2022

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles

Select a source type:

Consult the lists of relevant articles, books, theses, conference reports, and other scholarly sources on the topic 'Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Journal articles on the topic "Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology"

1

Heyes, Cecilia. "New thinking: the evolution of human cognition." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367, no. 1599 (August 5, 2012): 2091–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0111.

Full text
Abstract:
Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation. Research on the evolution of human cognition asks what types of thinking make us such peculiar animals, and how they have been generated by evolutionary processes. New research in this field looks deeper into the evolutionary history of human cognition, and adopts a more multi-disciplinary approach than earlier ‘Evolutionary Psychology’. It is informed by comparisons between humans and a range of primate and non-primate species, and integrates findings from anthropology, archaeology, economics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. Using these methods, recent research reveals profound commonalities, as well striking differences, between human and non-human minds, and suggests that the evolution of human cognition has been much more gradual and incremental than previously assumed. It accords crucial roles to cultural evolution, techno-social co-evolution and gene–culture co-evolution. These have produced domain-general developmental processes with extraordinary power—power that makes human cognition, and human lives, unique.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Barkow, Jerome H. "Précis ofDarwin, sex and status: Biological approaches to mind and culture." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14, no. 2 (June 1991): 295–301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00066711.

Full text
Abstract:
AbstractDarwin, Sex and Statusargues that a human sociobiology that mistakes evolutionary theory for theories of psychology and culture is wrong, as are psychologies that could never have evolved or social sciences that posit impossible psychologies. Status develops theories of human self-awareness, cognition, and cultural capacity that are compatible with evolutionary theory. Recurring themes include: the importance of sexual selection in human evolution; our species' preoccupation with self-esteem and relative standing; the individual as an active strategist, regularly revising culturally provided information; and awareness as an impressionmanagement device. Culture is a somewhat structured information pool that itself evolves, often in ways that reduce the genetic fitness of its participants.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Cross, Ian. "The evolutionary nature of musical meaning." Musicae Scientiae 13, no. 2_suppl (September 2009): 179–200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1029864909013002091.

Full text
Abstract:
The paper will draw on ethnomusicological, cognitive and neuroscientific evidence in suggesting that music and language constitute complementary components of the human communicative toolkit. It will start by outlining an operational definition of music as a mode of social interaction in terms of its generic, cross-cultural properties that facilitates comparison with language as a universal human faculty. It will argue that, despite the fact that music appears much more heterogeneous and differentiated in function from culture to culture than does language, music possesses common attributes across cultures: it exploits the human capacity to entrain to external (particularly social) stimuli, and presents a rich set of semantic fields while under-determining meaning. While language is held to possess both combinatoriality and semanticity, music is often claimed to be combinatorial but to lack semanticity. This paper will argue that music has semanticity, but that this semanticity is adapted for a different function from that of language. Music exploits the human capacity for entrainment, increasing the likelihood that participants will experience a sense of ‘shared intentionality’. It presents the characteristics of an ‘honest signal’ while under-specifying goals in ways that permit individuals to interact even while holding to personal interpretations of goals and meanings that may actually be in conflict. Music allows participants to explore the prospective consequences of their actions and attitudes towards others within a temporal framework that promotes the alignment of participants’ sense of goals. As a generic human faculty music thus provides a medium that is adapted to situations of social uncertainty, a medium by means of which a capacity for flexible social interaction can be explored and reinforced. It will be argued that a faculty for music is likely to have been exaptive in the evolution of the human capacity for complex social interaction.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Jameson, Kimberly. "Culture and Cognition: What is Universal about the Representation of Color Experience?" Journal of Cognition and Culture 5, no. 3-4 (2005): 293–348. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853705774648527.

Full text
Abstract:
AbstractExisting research in color naming and categorization primarily reflects two opposing views: A Cultural Relativist view that posits color perception is greatly shaped by culturally specific language associations and perceptual learning, and a Universalist view that emphasizes panhuman shared color processing as the basis for color naming similarities within and across cultures. Recent empirical evidence finds color processing differs both within and across cultures. This divergent color processing raises new questions about the sources of previously observed cultural coherence and cross-cultural universality. The present article evaluates the relevance of individual variation on the mainstream model of color naming. It also presents an alternate view that specifies how color naming and categorization is shaped by both panhuman cognitive universals and socio-cultural evolutionary processes. This alternative view, expressed, in part, using an Interpoint Distance Model of color categorization, is compatible with new empirical results showing divergent color processing within and across cultures. It suggests that universalities in color naming and categorization may naturally arise across cultures because color language and color categories primarily reflect culturally modal linguistic mappings, and categories are shaped by universal cognitive constructs and culturally salient features of color. Thus, a shared cultural representation of color based on widely shared cognitive dimensions may be the proper foundation for universalities of color naming and categorization. Across cultures this form of representation may result from convergent responses to similar pressures on color lexicon evolution.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Nichols, Ryan, Henrike Moll, and Jacob L. Mackey. "Rethinking Cultural Evolutionary Psychology." Journal of Cognition and Culture 19, no. 5 (November 8, 2019): 477–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12340070.

Full text
Abstract:
AbstractThis essay discusses Cecilia Heyes’ groundbreaking new book Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking. Heyes’ point of departure is the claim that current theories of cultural evolution fail adequately to make a place for the mind. Heyes articulates a cognitive psychology of cultural evolution by explaining how eponymous “cognitive gadgets,” such as imitation, mindreading and language, mental technologies, are “tuned” and “assembled” through social interaction and cultural learning. After recapitulating her explanations for the cultural and psychological origins of these gadgets, we turn to criticisms. Among those, we find Heyes’ use of evolutionary theory confusing on several points of importance; alternative theories of cultural evolution, especially those of the Tomasello group and of Boyd, Richerson and Henrich, are misrepresented; the book neglects joint attention and other forms of intersubjectivity in its explanation of the origins of cognitive gadgets; and, whereas Heyes accuses other theories of being “mindblind,” we find her theory ironically other-blind and autistic in character.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Copple, Mary M. "Gesture and Speech." Gesture 3, no. 1 (October 16, 2003): 47–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.3.1.04cop.

Full text
Abstract:
The role of gesture in Leroi-Gourhan’s theory of the origin of language is portrayed in its historical context and in view of recent research to allow a balanced appraisal of his contribution to the debate. Written in the mid-1960s, his Gesture and Speech offers a vivid contrast to Chomsky’s contemporary mentalist view of language that espoused Cartesian rationalism with its barriers between man and beast, and between body and mind. On the contrary, Leroi-Gourhan takes an integrated approach to human evolution: gesture (conceived of as ‘material action’) and speech are seen as twin products of an embodied mind that engendered our technical and social achievements. His explanation of the evolutionary association between the hand and the face provides a biological basis for cognitive as well as communicative aspects of gesture, with culture emerging as an extension of our zoological foundation. He asserts that the liberating of the hand from locomotion led to the liberating of the face from prehension, thus creating the duality of instrument and symbol whereby human beings physically and mentally grasp the world in which they live.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Thompson, Bill, Simon Kirby, and Kenny Smith. "Culture shapes the evolution of cognition." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 16 (April 4, 2016): 4530–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523631113.

Full text
Abstract:
A central debate in cognitive science concerns the nativist hypothesis, the proposal that universal features of behavior reflect a biologically determined cognitive substrate: For example, linguistic nativism proposes a domain-specific faculty of language that strongly constrains which languages can be learned. An evolutionary stance appears to provide support for linguistic nativism, because coordinated constraints on variation may facilitate communication and therefore be adaptive. However, language, like many other human behaviors, is underpinned by social learning and cultural transmission alongside biological evolution. We set out two models of these interactions, which show how culture can facilitate rapid biological adaptation yet rule out strong nativization. The amplifying effects of culture can allow weak cognitive biases to have significant population-level consequences, radically increasing the evolvability of weak, defeasible inductive biases; however, the emergence of a strong cultural universal does not imply, nor lead to, nor require, strong innate constraints. From this we must conclude, on evolutionary grounds, that the strong nativist hypothesis for language is false. More generally, because such reciprocal interactions between cultural and biological evolution are not limited to language, nativist explanations for many behaviors should be reconsidered: Evolutionary reasoning shows how we can have cognitively driven behavioral universals and yet extreme plasticity at the level of the individual—if, and only if, we account for the human capacity to transmit knowledge culturally. Wherever culture is involved, weak cognitive biases rather than strong innate constraints should be the default assumption.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Caporael, Linnda R. "The Evolution of Truly Social Cognition: The Core Configurations Model." Personality and Social Psychology Review 1, no. 4 (November 1997): 276–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0104_1.

Full text
Abstract:
This article introduces a vocabulary suitable for evolutionary analyses in the human cognitive, social, and behavioral sciences. The vocabulary carves a middle way between advocates and critics of evolutionary perspectives by substituting the concept of repeated assembly for nature-nurture dualism. A model of core configurations-based on human morphology and ecology in human evolutionary history-is presented, and I argue that these configurations offace-to-face groups are the selective context for uniquely human mental systems. Hence, human cognition is “truly social,” specialized for group living. The relevance of the core configuration model is illustrated with respect to two areas of interest to social psychologists: the self and social identity, and distributed cognition and shared reality. A final section illustrates the integrative power of the core configuration model with a brief comparison of the social and cognitive tasks faced by scientists and foragers.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Wilke, Andreas, and Peter M. Todd. "Studying the evolution of cognition: Toward more methodological diversity in evolutionary psychology." Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences 12, no. 3 (July 2018): 133–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000147.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

Phillips, Claude S. "Culture, Social Minds, and Governance in Evolution." Politics and the Life Sciences 20, no. 2 (September 2001): 189–202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0730938400005475.

Full text
Abstract:
In the past quarter century, the concept of culture has undergone change as evolutionary scientists have come to include social behavior in their purview. Evolutionary psychology is the newest field to concern itself with culture by claiming that mostspecifichuman behaviors are generated by minds specifically designed for these behaviors—and not from a general-purpose mind—as a result of adaptations made during the Pleistocene. Thus, mental behaviors are explained as having formed independently of cultural learning. In defending the concept, however, the leading proponents practically slough off culture as significant in human affairs. I argue that they have neglected the powerful explanatory statement of Darwin regarding at least one general-purpose adaptation of social animals, namely, the instinct for sociability, a position supported by recent neurological studies. Expanding the Darwinian concept, modern research shows that (1) the human brain was selected for sociability, which explains the origin and strength of culture, as well as its variability; (2) the development of complex culture in a pre-human primate initiated the two-and-one-half million-year evolution to modern humans; and (3) there are political contributions to cultural evolution that rest on the nature of groups (competitive and cooperative).
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
More sources

Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology"

1

Gers, Matt. "Human culture and cognition : a thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy /." ResearchArchive@Victoria e-Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10063/320.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Dean, Lewis G. "A comparative investigation of the cognitive and social factors underlying a capacity for cumulative culture." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2133.

Full text
Abstract:
Human culture has been proposed to uniquely exhibit a ‘ratchet effect’, with beneficial modifications being made to cultural traits over many generations. This is widely thought to have allowed an accumulation of technology and knowledge over time, and to be of central importance to the remarkable ecological and demographic success of humans. Whilst many researchers argue that the roots of human culture lie in social learning, a process widespread in nature, the exact cognitive capacities that set humans apart are not known. To provide a comparative assessment of nine separate hypotheses regarding different social and cognitive factors that may underlie a capacity for cumulative culture, in this thesis a cumulative puzzlebox was presented to three species. Groups of capuchins, chimpanzees and children were provided with the opportunity to solve the puzzlebox to three sequential levels to retrieve rewards of increasing desirability. Higher level solutions spread only in the children. Evidence was found for the occurrence of teaching, imitation, complex communication and prosociality in groups of children, but not in groups of capuchins and chimpanzees. Furthermore, these processes were positively correlated with the performance of individuals within the groups of children which was the only species to show evidence of cumulative cultural learning. Five further hypotheses focussed on alternative social and cognitive factors were not supported by the evidence from this experiment.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Soares, Antonio Jose Espadinha Vieira. "Cultural evolution : making the case for the study of culture from an evolutionary perspective within the theoretical framework of neo-Darwinism and Meme Theory." Thesis, University of Macau, 2008. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b1874120.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Harrison, Rachel Anne. "Experimental studies of behavioural flexibility and cultural transmission in chimpanzees and children." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16954.

Full text
Abstract:
In this thesis, I explore two subjects of importance to the study of cultural evolution and cumulative culture; behavioural flexibility in chimpanzees, and social transmission in human children. In Chapter 1, I give an overview of current literature on the cognitive requirements of cumulative culture, with a focus on behavioural flexibility as a capacity which facilitates cumulative culture. I also explore a current discussion in the field of cultural evolution; namely the debate between "standard" and cultural attraction-based approaches to the study of cultural evolution. Chapter 2 is an experimental investigation of the capacity of chimpanzees to respond flexibly to a changing foraging task. This study found that chimpanzees did alter their behaviour, but to a limited degree. In Chapter 3 I provide the same artificial foraging task to two further groups of chimpanzees, at a sanctuary in Zambia. This study again found that chimpanzees altered their behaviour in response to task constraints, but also found a significant difference in performance between the two groups tested. Chapter 4 explores one potential factor which may contribute to these group differences; social tolerance. Data on social tolerance from all three groups of chimpanzees is presented. In Chapter 5, I turn to another key factor in the study of culture and also address the cultural attraction approach, by conducting a transmission chain study of four- to eight-year-old human children, comparing the transmission of a symbolic and non-symbolic image. I found that neither image was reliably transmitted along transmission chains. Finally, in Chapter 6, I discuss the findings of the thesis, and suggest that future work considers multiple demographic groups, whether this means the inclusion of multiple groups of apes in studies of non-human primate cognition, or the consideration of how cultural behaviours might be transformed when transmitted by human children rather than adults.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Mullins, Daniel Austin. "The evolution of literacy : a cross-cultural account of literacy's emergence, spread, and relationship with human cooperation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:98d1f155-c96d-4ba0-ac36-c610d3d7454c.

Full text
Abstract:
Social theorists have long argued that literacy is one of the principal causes and hallmark features of complex society. However, the relationship between literacy and social complexity remains poorly understood because the relevant data have not been assembled in a way that would allow competing hypotheses to be adjudicated. The project set out in this thesis provides a novel account of the multiple origins of literate behaviour around the globe, the principal mechanisms of its cultural transmission, and its relationship with the cultural evolution of large-group human cooperation and complex forms of socio-political organisation. A multi-method large-scale cross-cultural approach provided the data necessary to achieve these objectives. Evidence from the societies within which literate behaviour first emerged, and from a representative sample of ethnographically-attested societies worldwide (n=74), indicates that literate behaviour emerged through the routinization of rituals and pre-literate sign systems, eventually spreading more widely through classical religions. Cross-cultural evidence also suggests that literacy assumed a wide variety of forms and socio-political functions, particularly in large, complex groups, extending evolved psychological mechanisms for cooperation, which include reciprocity, reputation formation and maintenance systems, social norms and norm enforcement systems, and group identification. Finally, the results of a cross-cultural historical survey of first-generation states (n=10) reveal that simple models assuming single cause-and-effect relationships between literacy and complex forms of socio-political organisation must be rejected. Instead, literacy and first-generation state-level polities appear to have interacted in a complex positive feedback loop. This thesis contributes to the wider goal of transforming social and cultural anthropology into a cumulative and rapid-discovery science.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Nainiger, Monica Ann. "GENDER DIFFERENCES IN MATE PREFERENCES AMONG SINGLE HETEROSEXUAL ROMANIANS RESIDING IN THE UNITED STATES." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1578495544320731.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Books on the topic "Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology"

1

Culture and cognition: Evolutionary perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

author, Gowlett John, and Dunbar, R. I. M. (Robin Ian MacDonald), 1947- author, eds. Thinking big: How the evolution of social life shaped the human mind. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

(Wolf), Singer W., Wunder André, and SpringerLink (Online service), eds. Interdisciplinary Anthropology: Continuing Evolution of Man. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2011.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Thought in a hostile world: The evolution of human cognition. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Evolutionary theory and human nature. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Wired for culture: Origins of the human social mind. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

How homo became sapiens: On the evolution of thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Explaining culture: A naturalistic approach. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1996.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Sperber, Dan. La contagion des idées: Théorie naturaliste de la culture. Paris: O. Jacob, 1996.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

Grounding sociality: Neurons, mind, and culture. New York: Psychology Press, 2011.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
More sources

Book chapters on the topic "Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology"

1

Vonk, Jennifer, Molly McGuire, and Zoe Johnson-Ulrich. "The Evolution of Social Cognition." In Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology, 81–94. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12697-5_7.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Morgan, Thomas J. H., Catharine P. Cross, and Luke E. Rendell. "Nothing in Human Behavior Makes Sense Except in the Light of Culture: Shared Interests of Social Psychology and Cultural Evolution." In Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Psychology, 215–28. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12697-5_17.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Pinto, Anabela. "An Evolutionary Approach to the Adaptive Value of Belief." In Evolutionary Psychology Meets Social Neuroscience [Working Title]. IntechOpen, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97538.

Full text
Abstract:
The word “belief” evokes concepts such as religious or political beliefs, however there is more to belief than cultural aspects. The formation of beliefs depends on information acquired through subjective sampling and informants. Recent developments in the study of animal cognition suggest that animals also hold beliefs and there are some aspects that underly the formation of beliefs which are shared with other animal species, namely the relationship between causality, predictability and utility of beliefs. This review explores the biological roots of belief formation and suggests explanations for how evolution shaped the mind to harbour complex concepts based on linguistic structures held by humans. Furthermore, it suggests that beliefs are shaped by the type and process of information acquisition which progresses through three levels of complexity.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Acerbi, Alberto. "Wary learners." In Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age, 21–48. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198835943.003.0002.

Full text
Abstract:
Cultural evolution is a diverse field of research, but some similarities can be found: cultural evolutionists defend a quantitative, naturalistic, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of human culture. Importantly, cultural evolutionists are committed to develop sound hypotheses about the individual psychology that drives our cultural behavior. Although there are different nuances, a common idea is that human cognition is specialized for processing social interactions, communication, and learning from others. From an evolutionary point of view, the cognitive mechanisms involved should produce, on average, adaptive outcomes. From this perspective, social learning strategies (a series of relatively simple, general-domain, heuristics to choose when, what, and from whom to copy) provide a first boundary to indiscriminate social influence. I critically examine the concept of social learning strategies, and I discuss how cultural evolutionists may have overestimated both the effect of social influence and, possibly, our reliance of social learning itself. I also discuss the perspective from epistemic vigilance theory, which gives more weight to the possibility of explicit deception, and proposes that we apply sophisticated cognitive operations when deciding whether to trust information coming from others.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Tratner, Adam, and Melissa McDonald. "Genocide and the Male Warrior Psychology." In Confronting Humanity at its Worst, 3–28. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190685942.003.0001.

Full text
Abstract:
Is the capacity for genocide “hard-wired” into the evolved psychology of our species? Using perspectives from evolutionary psychology, this chapter discusses and provides evidence for the evolved psychological underpinnings of intergroup violence and outlines how sexual selection may have prompted the evolution of psychological mechanisms that facilitate intergroup violence, particularly among men. For ancestral humans, participating in strategic intergroup violence may have allowed men to enhance their reproductive fitness, thereby inducing selection pressures for psychological mechanisms that produce cognitions, affect, and behaviors that promote intergroup violence under specific circumstances. This chapter emphasizes how these psychological mechanisms may interact with features of our modern environment, such as social, cultural, and political factors, to produce genocide.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Bradley, Ben. "Culture." In Darwin's Psychology, 266–91. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198708216.003.0008.

Full text
Abstract:
The concepts of civilization and culture play a structuring role in Descent’s discussion of human agency. The evolutionary history Darwin described found continuity between animals and proto-humans. Thereafter, human history took on the idealized form of a single stairway rising in stages. Despite his enlightened opposition to slavery, Darwin placed on the stairs’ bottom step ‘the lowest savage,’ pictured in a disturbingly derogatory way. On the top step were certain nineteenth-century Europeans. Descent does not hold the progress of civilization to be inevitable, however. Indeed, Darwin holds natural selection to play a subordinate role in shaping contemporary human agency. While the foundations of human action are laid by our descent from animals, agency is specified—for good or ill—by the social customs and institutions which structure the development and group-life of a given individual: evolution proposes, culture disposes. This formula is fleshed out through Descent’s discussions of language use, moral agency, religious belief, virtue, and aesthetics. Resonances are explored with perspectives on social organization in Social Darwinism, Evolutionary Psychology, and theories of cultural evolution.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Chiao, Joan Y., and Katherine D. Blizinsky. "Cultural Neuroscience." In The Handbook of Culture and Psychology, 695–723. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190679743.003.0021.

Full text
Abstract:
Cultural neuroscience is a research field that investigates the mutual influences of cultural and biological sciences on human behavior. Research in cultural neuroscience demonstrates cultural influences on the neurobiological mechanisms of processes of the mind and behavior. Culture tunes the structure and functional organization of the mind and the nervous system, including processes of emotion, cognition, and social behavior. Environmental and developmental approaches play an important role in the emergence and maintenance of culture. Culture serves as an evolutionary adaptation, protecting organisms from environmental conditions across geography. Cultural variation in the human mind, brain, and behavior serves to build and reinforce culture throughout the life course. This chapter examines the theoretical, methodological, and empirical foundations of cultural neuroscience and its implications for research in population health disparities and global mental health.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Finkel, Daniel N., Paul Swartwout, and Richard Sosis. "The Socio-religious Brain: A Developmental Model." In Social Brain, Distributed Mind. British Academy, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197264522.003.0014.

Full text
Abstract:
Evolutionary approaches to religion and the social brain hypothesis are ripe for functional integration. One conceptual link for such integration lies in recognizing the artificially imposed distinction between religion and most other aspects of culture found in band-level societies. This chapter argues that throughout most of human evolution, religion has organized the patterns of belief and behaviour in which the social brain operates. Religious beliefs, myths, symbols and rituals are the means by which emotional bonding, enculturation and identification with an in-group occur. The chapter presents a developmental account of socio-religious enculturation in order to clarify the unique role religion plays in social cognition. It proposes that the particulars of religious systems are introduced and practised during childhood, sealed in adolescence, reinforced throughout reproductive adulthood and transmitted by post-reproductive adults.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Bail, Christopher. "The Evolution of Cultural Environments." In Terrified. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691159423.003.0008.

Full text
Abstract:
This chapter summarizes the evolutionary theory of how civil society organizations shape the evolution of cultural environments in the wake of major crises such as the September 11 attacks. It discusses the international implications of the rise of anti-Muslim messages within the American public sphere. It argues that the evolution of shared understandings of Islam in the American public sphere cannot be explained via cultural, structural, or social-psychological factors alone. Rather than independent causal factors competing for influence, culture, structure, and social psychology are best described as interdependent forces that combine to produce a new status quo as societies transition out of crises. The interpenetration of culture, structure, and social psychology creates a particularly powerful form of cultural change because it is largely invisible.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

Okasha, Samir. "7. Human behaviour, mind, and culture." In Philosophy of Biology: A Very Short Introduction, 101–18. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780198806998.003.0007.

Full text
Abstract:
‘Human behaviour, mind, and culture’ examines the implications of biology for humans, asking whether human behaviour and culture can be explained in biological terms. The intelligence, language use, cultural inventions, technological prowess, and social institutions of our own species, Homo sapiens, seem to set us apart from other species. Can biology shed any light on humanity and its achievements? One way to tackle this question is to ask whether human behaviour can be understood in biological terms. The nature vs nurture debate is discussed, followed by the approaches of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology to the study of human behaviour. Finally, cultural evolution—or dual inheritance theory—is considered and how this relates to biological evolution.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
You might also be interested in the extended bibliographies on the topic 'Social evolution. Cognition and culture. Evolutionary psychology' for particular source types:
Journal articles Books
We offer discounts on all premium plans for authors whose works are included in thematic literature selections. Contact us to get a unique promo code!

To the bibliography