Cultural evolution: a review of theory, findings and controversies

A Mesoudi - Evolutionary biology, 2016 - Springer
The last two decades have seen an explosion in research analysing cultural change as a
Darwinian evolutionary process. Here I provide an overview of the theory of cultural …

Prestige-biased social learning: Current evidence and outstanding questions

ÁV Jiménez, A Mesoudi - Palgrave Communications, 2019 - nature.com
Cultural evolution theory posits that a major factor in human ecological success is our high-
fidelity and selective social learning, which permits the accumulation of adaptive knowledge …

[BOOK][B] The secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter

J Henrich - 2016 - degruyter.com
Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the
wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters …

[BOOK][B] Evolutionary psychology: The new science of the mind

DM Buss - 2019 - taylorfrancis.com
Where did we come from? What is our connection with other life forms? What are the
mechanisms of mind that define what it means to be a human being? Evolutionary …

The elephant in the room: What matters cognitively in cumulative technological culture

F Osiurak, E Reynaud - Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2020 - cambridge.org
Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and
complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating …

[BOOK][B] Cultural evolution in the digital age

A Acerbi - 2019 - books.google.com
From emails to social media, from instant messaging to political memes, the way we produce
and transmit culture is radically changing. Understanding the consequences of the massive …

The Big Man Mechanism: how prestige fosters cooperation and creates prosocial leaders

J Henrich, M Chudek, R Boyd - … Transactions of the …, 2015 - royalsocietypublishing.org
Anthropological evidence from diverse societies suggests that prestige-based leadership
may provide a foundation for cooperation in many contexts. Here, inspired by such …

Who's the boss? Concepts of social power across development

S Gülgöz, SA Gelman - Child development, 2017 - Wiley Online Library
Power differences are observed in children's early relationships, yet little is known about
how children conceptualize social power. Study 1 recruited adults (n= 35) to assess the …

Understanding cumulative cultural evolution

J Henrich, R Boyd, M Derex, MA Kline… - Proceedings of the …, 2016 - National Acad Sciences
In a narrow critique of two early papers in the literature on cumulative cultural evolution,
Vaesen et al.(1) misunderstand the work they criticize, mischaracterize multiple lines of …

Tradition and invention: The bifocal stance theory of cultural evolution

R Jagiello, C Heyes, H Whitehouse - Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2022 - cambridge.org
Cultural evolution depends on both innovation (the creation of new cultural variants by
accident or design) and high-fidelity transmission (which preserves our accumulated …