PSYC14H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Chinese Whispers, Internment Of Japanese Americans, Fecundity
25 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
-Variety is the spice of life
-Culture is not separate from evolution
-You have something, and certain things can be reproduced as a
function of environmental pressures and those things tend to
succeed as they are passed down the line
-Before them, genetic evolution was all about non-human
organisms/physical adaptations but not our psychological traits
and all of a sudden, these guys drew conclusions
-Argued that humans not immune to evolutionary pressures and
psychological traits, such as the ways in which we think, have
been selected for as well, not just physical things – we have
evolved these things as well
-We’re different from other species bc we’re open to biological
evo and cultural evo and that is why we are humans
-Only genes make exact copies of themselves so only genes can
have a distinguishment between successful and non-successful
-Anything with this property will do it
-Maybe there’s another kind of replication that could be doing the
same job as dna – meme is a unit of cultural inheritance, behaves
like a gene in human culture, and the person copying the idea
from one brain to another is the replication
-E.g. catching a tune is like catching a virus because it goes from
person to person, even though it’s not genetic, it’s memetic – as
long as something is accurately copied, even from generations,
you have potential of natural selection
-Some tunes are more likely to be whistled and copied than
others – natural selection
--e.g. gossip is something that gets passed down from one person to
another
-Memes use humans as their host as we are the ones doing
things
-3 main features that determine success of a gene or meme to be
passed onto the next generation faithfully!
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-Longevity – the unit that gets replicated and passed on must do
so for a long period of time
-Fecundity – how rapidly it gets passed onto next host and how
rapidly it can spread through population
-Fidelity – does the unit get reproduced faithfully or true to original
form? Evo by ns doesn’t copy genes completely exactly bc there
are sometimes mutations so fidelity isn’t always 100%; memes
have this too because you might hum tune slightly differently
-Communicable ideas spread – if it’s easy to understand, it will be
spread easily but if it’s hard to understand, it will get lost along the
way and not spread completely
-Emotional ideas spread more than unemotional ideas because
we’re hardwired to be emotional creatures; emotions are very
adaptive for us
-Minimally counterintuitive ideas spread – e.g. broken telephone
activity - ; minimally counterintuitive ideas (confused table) spread
and are remembered more and better than intuitive (table is 4
legs) and completely non-intuitive (too out there that we wont
share) ideas
-Ant climbing grass, falls, goes up again – this goes against the
fitness of ant so why is it doing it? It will be exposed to predators
at top of grass; that ant has been hijacked by parasitic worm and
it’s in the brain so that’s why it’s being forced to climb to the top of
the plant and be exposed to predators; that’s the only way the
larvae will survive, by going into sheep stomach
-Parasitic ideas might have other benefits so they do this to
people and get spread, e.g. religions – their purpose is to give up
your self interest to serve god so they are parasitic in a way; other
species do not do this
-Shakers – absolute celibacy was their meme; unit of inheritance
for them was meme of celibacy; they would take orphans and
take them into their group, into their culture, and pass down the
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
You have something, and certain things can be reproduced as a function of environmental pressures and those things tend to succeed as they are passed down the line. Before them, genetic evolution was all about non-human organisms/physical adaptations but not our psychological traits and all of a sudden, these guys drew conclusions. Argued that humans not immune to evolutionary pressures and psychological traits, such as the ways in which we think, have been selected for as well, not just physical things we have evolved these things as well. We"re different from other species bc we"re open to biological evo and cultural evo and that is why we are humans. Only genes make exact copies of themselves so only genes can have a distinguishment between successful and non-successful. Some tunes are more likely to be whistled and copied than others natural selection. -e. g. gossip is something that gets passed down from one person to another.
