PSYC14H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Evolution, Fecundity, Sexual Selection
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PSYC14: Cross-Cultural Social Psychology Clara Rebello
PSYC14 Lecture 2: Evolutionary Foundations of Cultural Psychology
• Biological evolution
o Replication of genes
o Natural selection
o Sexual selection
• Biological genes analogous to cultural memes
o Longevity: Living a long time
o Fecundity: Ability to produce many new ideas
▪ If a story is really popular, more people will retell it
o Fidelity: Faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty
and support
• Cultural evolution
o Replication of ideas
o Communicable ideas spread
▪ Body language, expressions, etc.
▪ Socially unacceptable ideas are not usually expressed
o Useful ideas spread
▪ People want to feel of value
o Emotional ideas spread
▪ Example: Adding emotional appeal to story, so that others will be more
interested in it
▪ Generally, the best way to bond is to gain acceptance from group → Emotion is
an efficient way to engage someone else’s attention and feelings
▪ Emotional ideas are remembered better
o Minimally counterintuitive ideas spread
• Hunter-gatherer adaptedness
o Groups were usually small
o They were usually nomadic
▪ Constantly moving to new land
o Daily life involved physical challenge
o Disease produced high rates of mortality
▪ Diseases weren’t chronic and were usually infectious
▪ Would spike and people would die quickly
o Most activities occurred in highly social contexts
▪ Small community
o Privacy was limited
o Conflicts dealt with thru extensive group discussions
▪ Community is very cohesive and necessary for survival
o These generalizations describe the contexts in which almost all human evolution and
history have occurred
▪ Technology can evolve at a very fast rate, but our biology can only evolve so
much in a shorter time
• Homo‐erectus was born 1.8 million years ago
PSYC14: Cross-Cultural Social Psychology Clara Rebello
o About 500,000 years ago, these hominids began developing increasingly larger brains
o Despite their larger brains, they left no evidence of art, religion, or language
• Homosapiens came on the scene approximately 150,000 years ago
o They had the capacity for developing language
o Communication was much more efficient
o Community became much more sophisticated
o Prefrontal cortex develops in meaningful ways → Better ability to plan and coordinate
• Domestication of plants and animals was a monumental change in human history → Industrial
revolution
o Using animals as a resource rather than just butchering them for food
▪ Example: Form of transportation
o Resulted in a new way of living
▪ Now sedentary, no longer nomadic
▪ No longer need to keep moving around
▪ Surplus amount of food → Trade system (Exchanging, selling)
▪ More time to enhance/develop new skills like weaving and crafting
o Farming (Agriculture)
o Pastoralism: Herding sheep, goats, cattle, horses, camels
o Crop-growing (Cultivating domesticated plants)
o Development of farming communities
• Between about 12,000 and 1000 BC
o Farming appeared independently
in a number of places
o Industrial revolution’s appearance
seems sudden and random
o Evolution of culture depends on
the quality of the environment
▪ Examples: Soil richness
o Possibly in all the places marked
on the map
• Hunter-gatherer vs. farming communities
o We live our lives today comfortably with excess resources