Cultural Evolution

Why Do Humans Embrace Rituals? Disease and Danger May Be at the Root of the Behaviors

While the origins of many rituals remain murky, emerging research suggests we evolved such social practices to ward off or address common threats.

National Geographic

How the ‘Western Mind’ Was Shaped by the Medieval Church

Most research on human psychology focuses on Western societies, but the way people in the West think can be traced to changes in family structures in the Middle Ages.

BBC Future

Is Your Society Good for (Biological) Fitness?

Remember that there are two major biological objectives in life, survival and reproduction.

Science on Religion

‘The WEIRDest People in the World’ Review: Marriage Story

An evolutionary biologist argues that a change in how we coupled made the modern West radically different.

The Wall Street Journal

For the Evolution of Smarts, Parents Matter

Songbird research shows cognitive and survival benefits.

Cosmos

Chimps Have Local Culture Differences When It Comes to Eating Termites

Different groups of chimpanzees have their own distinct ways of fishing for termites, suggesting these techniques are passed on as a form of local culture.

New Scientist

Is Human Cooperativity an Outcome of Competition Between Cultural Groups?

A study by ASU researchers looks at how culture may have fueled our capacity to cooperate with strangers.

ASU Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Worth of an Angry God

How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.

Nautilus

Did Big Gods Come Before or After Big Societies?

The whirling center of a scientific controversy.

Science on 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

Cultural Intelligence: A Conversation with Michele Gelfand

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

Edge.org

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

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