Psychology 3228 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Richard Dawkins, Alcohol Tolerance, Functional Programming

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3228
• Professor: Scott Mac Dougall- Shackleton

Document Summary

Week 11 evolution & culture in merely 10,000 years we have moved from stone-age hunter-gatherers to the technological information age. This remarkable change due primarily to cultural evolution, not biological evolution: most ppl today live in urban societies, very brief genetic evolution, so changes today are primarily brought about by culture not biology. Culture as superorganism: much study of culture focused on cultural differences, franz boas, margaret mead. Documented wide variety of cultural practices that differed from western culture. Culture as superorganism: approach to culture as omnipotent dominated social sciences and popular culture (sssm and cultural relativism, but -> bro(cid:449)(cid:374)(cid:859)s (cid:862)u(cid:374)i(cid:448)ersal people(cid:863) do(cid:272)u(cid:373)e(cid:374)ted (cid:272)ultural u(cid:374)i(cid:448)ersalities. May reflect human predispositions based on genetic inheritance. Or really good ideas idea diffusion or constrained design space may explain cultural universals. Evolutionary theories of culture: 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 (e. g. , language parameters, phonemes)