Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T19:52:59.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural group selection follows Darwin's classic syllogism for the operation of selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Peter Richerson ,
Ryan Baldini ,
Adrian V. Bell ,
Kathryn Demps ,
Karl Frost ,
Vicken Hillis ,
Sarah Mathew ,
Emily K. Newton ,
Nicole Naar  and
Lesley Newson
...Show all authors
Peter Richerson
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@[email protected]@gmail.eduwww.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/richerson.htmhttp://vickenhillis.weebly.comhttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lesley_Newson/
Ryan Baldini
Affiliation:
Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@ucdavis.eduhttps://sites.google.com/site/ryanbaldini/https://sites.google.com/site/karljosephfrost/
Adrian V. Bell
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. [email protected]://adrianbell.wordpress.com/
Kathryn Demps
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725. [email protected]://sspa.boisestate.edu/anthropology/faculty-and-staff/kathryn-demps/
Karl Frost
Affiliation:
Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@ucdavis.eduhttps://sites.google.com/site/ryanbaldini/https://sites.google.com/site/karljosephfrost/
Vicken Hillis
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@[email protected]@gmail.eduwww.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/richerson.htmhttp://vickenhillis.weebly.comhttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lesley_Newson/
Sarah Mathew
Affiliation:
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. [email protected]://www.sarahmathew.net/Site/Home.html
Emily K. Newton
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, CA 94901. [email protected]://emilyknewton.weebly.com/
Nicole Naar
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@gmail.comhttp://www.smaldino.com/
Lesley Newson
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@[email protected]@gmail.eduwww.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/richerson/richerson.htmhttp://vickenhillis.weebly.comhttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lesley_Newson/
Cody Ross
Affiliation:
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 86501. [email protected]://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xSugEskAAAAJ
Paul E. Smaldino
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California–Davis, Davis, CA 95616. [email protected]@gmail.comhttp://www.smaldino.com/
Timothy M. Waring
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469. [email protected]://timwaring.wordpress.com/
Matthew Zefferman
Affiliation:
National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996. [email protected]://www.zefferman.com/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The main objective of our target article was to sketch the empirical case for the importance of selection at the level of groups on cultural variation. Such variation is massive in humans, but modest or absent in other species. Group selection processes acting on this variation is a framework for developing explanations of the unusual level of cooperation between non-relatives found in our species. Our case for cultural group selection (CGS) followed Darwin's classic syllogism regarding natural selection: If variation exists at the level of groups, if this variation is heritable, and if it plays a role in the success or failure of competing groups, then selection will operate at the level of groups. We outlined the relevant domains where such evidence can be sought and characterized the main conclusions of work in those domains. Most commentators agree that CGS plays some role in human evolution, although some were considerably more skeptical. Some contributed additional empirical cases. Some raised issues of the scope of CGS explanations versus competing ones.

Type
Authors' Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e58
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

Barrett, H. C. (2015) The shape of thought: How mental adaptations evolve. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Batson, C. D. (2011) Altruism in humans. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baum, W. M., Paciotti, B., Richerson, P., Lubell, M. & McElreath, R. (2012) Cooperation due to cultural norms, not individual reputation. Behavioural Processes 91(1):90–93. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2012.06.001.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
Boehm, C. (1984) Blood revenge. The anthropology of feuding in Montenegro and other tribal societies. University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Bolhuis, J. J., Brown, G. R., Richardson, R. C. & Laland, K. N. (2011) Darwin in mind: New opportunities for evolutionary psychology. PLoS Biology 9(7):e1001109. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001109.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1992a) How microevolutionary processes give rise to history. In: History and evolution, ed. Nitecki, M. H. & Nitecki, D. V., pp. 179–209. State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1992b) Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethology and Sociobiology 13(3):171–95.Google Scholar
Brandon, R. N. (1994) Theory and experiment in evolutionary biology. Synthese 99(1):59–73. doi: 10.2307/20117886.Google Scholar
Brewer, M. B. (2007) The importance of being we: Human nature and intergroup relations. American Psychologist 62(8):728–38. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.8.728.Google Scholar
Buss, D. M. (2014) Evolutionary psychology, 5th edition. Pearson.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. & Feldman, M. W. (1981) Cultural transmission and evolution: A quantitative approach. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Currie, T. E., Greenhill, S. J., Gray, R. D., Hasegawa, T. & Mace, R. (2010) Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific. Nature 467(7317):801–804.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. (1874) The descent of man and selection in relation to sex, 2nd edition. American Home Library.Google Scholar
Davies, N. (2011) Vanished kingdoms: The rise and fall of states and nations. Viking.Google Scholar
Dean, L. G., Kendal, R. L., Schapiro, S. J., Thierry, B. & Laland, K. N. (2012) Identification of the social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture. Science 335(6072):1114–18. doi: 10.1126/science.1213969.Google Scholar
Delton, A. W. & Krasnow, M. M. (2014) An independent replication that the evolution of direct reciprocity under uncertainty explains one-shot cooperation: Commentary on Zefferman. Evolution and Human Behavior 35(6):547–48. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.07.004.Google Scholar
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 Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1940) The Nuer: A description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, D. H. (1989) Albion's seed: Four British folkways in America. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Foster, G. M. (1960) Culture and conquest: America's Spanish heritage. Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.Google Scholar
Gerbault, P., Allaby, R. G., Boivin, N., Rudzinski, A., Grimaldi, I. M., Pires, J. C., Vigueira, C. C., Dobney, K., Gremillion, K. J., Barton, L., Arroyo-Kalin, M., Purugganan, M. D., Rubio de Casas, R., Bollongino, R., Burger, J., Fuller, D. Q., Bradley, D. G., Balding, D. J., Richerson, P.J., Gilbert, M. T. P., Larsen, G. & Thomas, M. G. (2014) Storytelling and story testing in domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111(17):6159–64. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1400425111.Google Scholar
Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., Norenzayan, A. & Henrich, J. (2011) The cultural transmission of faith: Why innate intuitions are necessary, but insufficient, to explain religious belief. Religion 41(3):389–10. doi: 10.1080/0048721x.2011.604510.Google Scholar
Gibson, C. C., Andersson, K., Ostrom, E. & Shivakumar, S. (2005) The Samaritan's dilemma: The political economy of development aid. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hämäläinen, P. (2008) The Comanche empire. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Haslam, S. A. (2001) Psychology in organizations: The social identity approach. Sage.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E. & Gintis, H. (2004) Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., McElreath, R., Gurven, M., Richerson, P. J., Ensminger, J., Alvard, M., Barr, A., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Camerer, C., Cardenas, J.-C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H. M., Gil-White, F., Gwako, E. L., Henrich, N., Hill, K., Lesorogol, C., Patton, J. Q, Marlowe, F. W., Tracer, D. P. & Ziker, J. (2012a) Culture does account for variation in game behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109(2):E32–33. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1118607109.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., Ensminger, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E., Henrich, N., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. P. & Ziker, J. (2010a) Markets, religion, community size, and the evolution of fairness and punishment. Science 327(5972):1480–84. doi: 10.1126/science.1182238. Available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5972/1480.Google Scholar
Henrich, J. & Gil-White, F. J. (2001) The evolution of prestige – Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior 22(3):165–96.Google Scholar
Henrich, J., McElreath, R., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Barrett, C., Bolyanatz, A., Cardenas, J. C., Gurven, M., Gwako, E. L., Henrich, N. S., Lesorogol, C., Marlowe, F., Tracer, D. & Ziker, J. (2006) Costly punishment across human societies. Science 312(5781):1767–70. doi: 10.1126/science.1127333.Google Scholar
Herrmann, B., Thöni, C. & Gächter, S. (2008) Antisocial punishment across societies. Science 319(5868):1362–67. doi: 10.1126/science.1153808.Google Scholar
Hill, K. R., Wood, B. M., Baggio, J., Hurtado, A. M. & Boyd, R. T. (2014) Hunter-gatherer inter-band interaction rates: Implications for cumulative culture. PLoS ONE 9(7):e102806. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0102806.Google Scholar
Horowitz, M. C. (2010) The diffusion of military power: Causes and consequences for international politics. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Insko, C. A., Gilmore, R., Drenan, S., Lipsitz, A., Moehle, D. & Thibaut, J. (1983) Trade versus expropriation in open groups: A comparison of two type of social power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44:977–99.Google Scholar
Itan, Y., Powell, A., Beaumont, M. A., Burger, J. & Thomas, M. G. (2009) The origins of lactase persistence in Europe. PLoS Computational Biology 5(8):e1000491. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000491.Google Scholar
Jordan, P. (2015) Technology as human social tradition: Cultural transmission among hunter-gatherers. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, R. C. (1985) The Nuer conquest: The structure and development of an expansionist system. University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Knauft, B. M. (1985) Good company and violence: Sorcery and social action in a lowland New Guinea Society. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, J. & Myles, S. (2010) How culture shaped the human genome: Bringing genetics and the human sciences together. Nature Reviews Genetics 11(2):137–48.Google Scholar
Laland, K. N., Sterelny, K., Odling-Smee, J., Hoppitt, W. & Uller, T. (2011) Cause and effect in biology revisited: Is Mayr's proximate-ultimate dichotomy still useful? Science 334(6062):1512–16. doi: 10.1126/science.1210879.Google Scholar
Lamba, S. (2014) Social learning in cooperative dilemmas. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 281(1787):e20140417. (Published Online May 28, 2014). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.0417.Google 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.Google Scholar
Levieil, D. P. & Orlove, B. (1990) Local control of aquatic resources: Community and ecology in Lake Titicaca, Peru. American Anthropologist 92(2):362–82. doi: 10.2307/680150.Google Scholar
Li, H. & Durbin, R. (2011) Inference of human population history from individual whole-genome sequences. Nature 475(7357):493–96. doi: 10.1038/nature10231. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v475/n7357/full/nature10231.html.Google Scholar
List, J. (2007) On the interpretation of giving in dictator games. Journal of Political Economy 115(3):482–93.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E. (1995) The major transitions in evolution. W. H. Freeman/Spectrum.Google Scholar
McElreath, R., Bell, A. V., Efferson, C., Lubell, M., Richerson, P. J. & Waring, T. (2008) Beyond existence and aiming outside the laboratory: Estimating frequency-dependent and pay-off-biased social learning strategies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363:3515–28.Google Scholar
Mu, Y., Kitayama, S., Han, S., & Gelfand, M. J. (2015) How culture gets embrained: Cultural differences in event-related potentials of social norm violations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 112(50):15348–53. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1509839112.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. E. & Cohen, D. (1996) Culture of Honor: The psychology of violence in the South. Westview Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C., Wallis, J. J. & Weingast, B. R. (2009) Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. (2005) Understanding institutional diversity. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Panksepp, J. & Biven, L. (2012) The archaeology of mind: Neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Pickrell, J. K. & Reich, D. (2014) Toward a new history and geography of human genes informed by ancient DNA. Trends in Genetics 30(9):377–89. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2014.07.007.Google Scholar
Price, G. R. (1970) Selection and covariance. Nature 277:520–21.Google Scholar
Price, G. R. (1972) Extensions of covariance selection mathematics. Annals of Human Genetics 35:485–90.Google Scholar
Richerson, P. J., Boyd, R. & Henrich, J. (2010) Gene-culture coevolution in the age of genomics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107(Suppl. 2):8985–92.Google Scholar
Rogers, A. R. (1990) Group selection by selective emigration. The American Naturalist 135(3):398–13.Google Scholar
Sheskin, M., Wynn, K. & Bloom, P. (2014) Anti-equality: Social comparison in young children. Cognition 130(2):152–56.Google Scholar
Silva, A. S. & Mace, R. (2014) Cooperation and conflict: Field experiments in Northern Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281(1792). (Published Online August 20, 2014). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1435. Available at: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1792/20141435 Google Scholar
Simmons, M. (1979) History of Pueblo-Spanish relations to 1821. In: Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 9: Southwest, ed. Ortiz, A., pp. 178–205. Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Smaldino, P. E. (2014) The cultural evolution of emergent group-level traits. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37(3):243–95. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X13001544.Google Scholar
Smaldino, P. E., Schank, J. C. & McElreath, R. (2013) Increased costs of cooperation help cooperators in the long run. The American Naturalist 4:451–63.Google Scholar
Soltis, J., Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1995) Can group-functional behaviors evolve by cultural group selection? An empirical test. Current Anthropology 36(3):473–94.Google Scholar
Steinmo, S. (2010) The evolution of modern states: Sweden, Japan, and the United States. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. (2012) The evolved apprentice: How evolution made humans unique. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stiner, M. C. & Kuhn, S. L. (2009) Paleolithic diet and the division of labor in Mediterranean Eurasia. In: Evolution of hominin diets: Integrating approaches to the study of Paleolithic subsistence, ed. Hublin, J.-J. & Richards, M. P., pp. 155–67. Springer Science+Business Media.Google Scholar
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1989) Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, 1. Theoretical considerations. Ethology and Sociobiology 10(1–3):29–49.Google Scholar
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In: The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, ed. Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., pp. 19–136. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Turchin, P. (2006) War and peace and war: The life cycles of imperial nations. Pi Press.Google Scholar
Turchin, P. (2009) A theory for the formation of large empires. Journal of Global History 4:191–217.Google Scholar
Turchin, P. & Nefedov, S. A. (2009) Secular cycles. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Whitehead, H. & Rendell, L. (2015) The cultural lives of whales and dolphins. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Whiten, A., Goodall, J., McGrew, W. C., Nishida, T., Reynolds, V., Sugiyama, Y., Tutin, C. E. G., Wrangham, R. W. & Boesch, C. (1999) Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature 399:682–85.Google Scholar
Whiten, A., McGuigan, N., Marshall-Pescini, S. & Hopper, L. M. (2009) Emulation, imitation, over-imitation and the scope of culture for child and chimpanzee. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 364:2417–28.Google Scholar
Williams, G. C. (1992) Natural selection: Domains, levels and challenges: Oxford University Press.Google 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.Google Scholar
Zefferman, M. R. (2014b) When repentance and forgiveness are possible, direct reciprocity does not explain one-shot generosity, even under arbitrarily high levels of uncertainty. Evolution and Human Behavior 35(6):548–49. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.07.003 Google Scholar