Science & the Big Questions

Being Copycats Might Be Key to Being Human

A quirk of psychology that affects the way people learn from others may have helped unlock the complicated technologies and rituals that human culture hinges on.

The Conversation

Topics: Cultural Evolution Ritual Social Learning

Emotional Words Such as “Love” Mean Different Things in Different Languages

An analysis of more than 2,000 languages reveals differences in the way feelings are conceptualized among cultures.

Scientific American

Topics: Cultural Evolution Emotion Language

How the Early Christian Church Gave Birth to Today’s WEIRD Europeans

Centuries-old incest ban made Westerners more independent and trusting of strangers, study argues.

Science

Topics: Cultural Evolution Values

Revenge Is Bittersweet at Best

Research is starting to reveal how the urge for vengeance may have evolved, when it can be useful, and what could prevent the violence it can provoke.

Knowable Magazine

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Group Conflict Reputation Revenge

Complex Birdsongs Help Biologists Piece Together the Evolution of Lifelong Learning

Could mating preferences, like females preferring males who sing complex songs, affect the evolution of learning? Insights from birds could have clues for how people learn throughout their lives.

The Conversation

Topics: Animal Studies Cultural Evolution Language Learning

Humans May Have Been Crafting Stone Tools for 2.6 Million Years

A new study pushes the origins of early human tool-making back by some 10,000 years earlier than previously believed.

Smithsonian

Topics: Cultural Evolution

Adaptations Inspired by Cultural Change Common in the Animal Kingdom

According to a new survey, cultural lifestyle changes inspire evolutionary adaptations more often than previously thought.

UPI

Topics: Animal Studies Cultural Evolution Genes

Game of Thrones and the Evolutionary Significance of Storytelling

What is it about storytelling that gets people so riled up when they feel it goes wrong? Perhaps the fury stems from the evolutionary burden stories, and storytellers, have had to carry.

Nautilus

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution

The Worth of an Angry God

How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.

Nautilus

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality

Did Big Gods Come Before or After Big Societies?

The whirling center of a scientific controversy.

Science on Religion

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality Scientific Study of Religion

Big Gods Came After the Rise of Civilizations, Not Before, Finds Study Using Huge Historical Database

God only started watching over us quite recently, according to a new study that analyzed 414 societies from 30 world regions.

The Conversation

Topics: Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Morality

Cultural Intelligence: A Conversation with Michele Gelfand

In this ever-increasing global world, we need to understand culture.

Edge.org

Topics: Cultural Evolution Revenge Values

How Belief in Punitive Gods May Have Helped Large Societies Cooperate

Belief in punitive gods may have helped humans cooperate across larger societies by uniting distant populations into a cohesive group.

New Scientist

Topics: Belief Cooperation Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Faith Morality Religious Groups

Sexual Selection in Action: Birds That Attract Multiple Mates Change Their Songs More Quickly

Biologists investigated whether birds that search for multiple mates would evolve ever more elaborate songs to attract them. What they found might have surprised Darwin.

The Conversation

Topics: Animal Studies Cultural Evolution

How Evolutionary Theory Guides Policy

A review of David Sloan Wilson’s new book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution.

Nature

Topics: Cultural Evolution David Sloan Wilson Evolutionary Mechanisms Evolutionary Theory

Cave That Housed Neanderthals and Denisovans Challenges View of Cultural Evolution

Researchers have deduced which early human species occupied Denisova Cave and when, drawing surprising conclusions about who made the sophisticated artifacts found there.

Scientific American

Topics: Cultural Evolution Human Evolution Neanderthals Symbolic Behavior

Tight and Loose Cultures: A Conversation with Michele Gelfand

Life can look quite different when a culture’s enforcement of norms is tight or loose.

Behavioral Scientist

Topics: Cultural Evolution Power

Gods Are Everywhere Because It’s Hard to Bargain With Them

The cognitive similarities between institutional life and religion.

Science on Religion

Topics: Cognition Cultural Evolution Evolution of Religion Imagination Religiosity Ritual Scientific Study of Religion

The Universe, Meaning, Culture, Gratitude, and Human Nature

The Psychology Podcast recap for November 2018.

Beautiful Minds, Scientific American

Topics: Cultural Evolution Gratitude Meaning Scott Barry Kaufman Universe

Indonesian Caves Hold Oldest Figurative Painting Ever Found, Scientists Say

Archaeologists found thousands of drawings and stencils in a warren of limestone caves in remote mountains on the island of Borneo. But no one knew how old they were until now.

NPR

Topics: Cultural Evolution

The Secret Life of Social Norms

Michele Gelfand uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture and its multilevel consequences for human groups.

TEDxPaloAltoSalon

Topics: Cultural Evolution