Norm reinforcement, not conformity or environmental factors, is predicted to sustain cultural variation.

ABSTRACT: The maintenance of cross-cultural variation and arbitrary traditions in human populations is a key question in cultural evolution. Conformist transmission, the tendency to follow the majority, was previously considered central to this phenomenon. However, recent theory indicates that cognitive biases can greatly reduce its ability to maintain traditions. Therefore, we expanded prior models to investigate two other ways that cultural variation can be sustained: payoff-biased transmission and norm reinforcement. Our findings predict that both payoff-biased transmission and reinforcement can enhance conformist transmission's ability to maintain traditions. However, payoff-biased transmission can only sustain cultural variation if it is functionally related to environmental factors. In contras

SUBMITTER: Manning ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11658947 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature