Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T05:08:28.179Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How evolved psychological mechanisms empower cultural group selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Joseph Henrich  and
Robert Boyd
Joseph Henrich
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Department of Psychology, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.joseph.henrich@gmail.comhttp://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/
Robert Boyd
Affiliation:
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. robert.t.boyd@gmail.comhttp://robboyd.abcs.asu.edu/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Driven by intergroup competition, social norms, beliefs, and practices can evolve in ways that more effectively tap into a wide variety of evolved psychological mechanisms to foster group-beneficial behavior. The more powerful such evolved mechanisms are, the more effectively culture can potentially harness and manipulate them to generate greater phenotypic variation across groups, thereby fueling cultural group selection.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e40
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvard, M. (2011) Genetic and cultural kinship among the Lamaleran whale hunters. Human Nature 22(1–2):89–107. doi: 10.1007/s12110-011-9104-x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barclay, P. (2013) Strategies for cooperation in biological markets, especially for humans. Evolution and Human Behavior 34(3):164–75. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.02.002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumard, N., Hyafil, A., Morris, I. & Boyer, P. (2015) Increased affluence explains the emergence of ascetic wisdoms and moralizing religions. Current Biology 25(1):10–15. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.10.063.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bell, A. V., Richerson, P. J. & McElreath, R. (2009) Culture rather than genes provides greater scope for the evolution of large-scale human prosociality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106(42):17671–74. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0903232106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyd, R. & Lorderbaum, J. P. (1987) No pure strategy is evolutionarily stable in the repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game. Nature 32(6117):58–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, R. & Mathew, S. (2015) The evolution of language may require third-party monitoring and sanctions. Evolution and Human Behavior 36(6):475–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. (2009) Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies. Nature 462(7269):51–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delton, A. W., Krasnow, M. M., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (2011) Evolution of direct reciprocity under uncertainty can explain human generosity in one-shot encounters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(32):13335–40. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102131108.Google ScholarPubMed
Edgerton, R. B. (1971) The individual in cultural adaptation: A study of four East African peoples. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Evans, N. & McConvell, P. (1998) The enigma of Pama-Nyungan expansion in Australia. In: Archaeology and Language II: Correlating archaeological and linguistic hypotheses, ed. Blench, R. & Spriggs, M., pp. 174–91. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiske, A. (1992) The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review 99(4):689–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J. (2016) The secret of our success: How learning from others drove human evolution, domesticated our species, and made us smart. Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (2012b) The puzzle of monogamous marriage. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367(1589):657–69. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2011.0290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, N. & Henrich, J. (2007) Why humans cooperate: A cultural and evolutionary explanation. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamba, S. & Mace, R. (2011) Demography and ecology drive variation in cooperation across human populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(35):14426–30. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1105186108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mathew, S., Boyd, R. & Van Veelen, M. (2013) Human cooperation among kin and close associates may require enforcement of norms by third parties. In: Cultural evolution, ed. Richerson, P. J. & Christiansen, M., pp. 45–60. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCullough, M. E., Pedersen, E. J., Schroder, J. M., Tabak, B. A. & Carver, C. S. (2013) Harsh childhood environmental characteristics predict exploitation and retaliation in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1750): 20122104. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2104.Google ScholarPubMed
McElreath, R. (2004) Social learning and the maintenance of cultural variation: An evolutionary model and data from East Africa. American Anthropologist 106(2):308–21. doi: 10.1525/aa.2004.106.2.308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panchanathan, K. & Boyd, R. (2004) Indirect reciprocity can stabilize cooperation without the second-order free rider problem. Nature 432:499–502.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S. (2012) The false allure of group selection. An Edge original essay. Available at: http://edge.org/conversation/the-false-allure-of-group-selection.Google Scholar
Richerson, P. J. & Boyd, R. (1999) Complex societies: The evolutionary origins of a crude superorganism. Human Nature 10(3):253–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salali, G. D., Juda, M. & Henrich, J. (2015) Transmission and development of costly punishment in children. Evolution and Human Behavior 36(2):86–94. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.09.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zefferman, M. R. (2014a) Direct reciprocity under uncertainty does not explain one-shot cooperation, but demonstrates the benefits of a norm psychology. Evolution and Human Behavior 35:358–67. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.04.003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar