Psychology 3228 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Superorganism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3228
• Professor: Caroline Strang

Document Summary

Psych 3228 lecture 11 evolution and culture. Culture is part of human nature: culture and evolution are working together. Culture as superorganism: much study of culture focused on cultural differences. Thought that they function separately: margaret mead documented wide variety of cultural practices that differed from western culture. Strong cultural relativist early on, then shifted later on. Evoked and transmitted culture: dual inheritance theory, gene-culture co-evolution, memetics. Evoked culture cultural differences may result from cultural relativism (transmitted culture) or evoked culture. Tooby and cosmides: phenotypes exhibit reaction norms, produce different cultural norms in different environments, e. g. , language parameters, phonemes. Cultures determine which languages we learn and changes the phonemes we hear: have biological predisposition to behave in certain ways culture comes in and directs you specifically. Transmitted culture transmitted culture posited to account for idea transmission/diffusion. Predisposition to acquire culture through these three things. Culture allows more rapid adaptation than biological evolution: adaptive strategy in rapidly varying environments.