Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA25690 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:48:21 GMT User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:44:19 -0500 Subject: Culturally Biased Transmission of Novel Traits From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <B876DC65.E6F0%bbenzon@mindspring.com> Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Henrich, J. (2001). "Cultural Transmission and the Diffusion of Innovations:
Adoption Dynamics Indicate That Biased Cultural Transmission Is the
Predominate Force in Behavorial Change." American Anthropologist 103(4):
992-1013.
ABSTRACT:
In challenging the pervasive model of individual actors as cost-benefit
analysts who adapt their behavior by learning from the environment, this
article analyzes the temporal dynamics of both environmental (individual)
learning and biased cultural transmission processes by comparing these
dynamics with the robust "S-shaped" curves that emerge from the diffusion of
innovation literature. The analysis shows three things: (1) that
environmental learning alone never produces the S-shaped adoption dynamics
typically observed in the spread of novel practices, ideas, and
technologies; (2) that biased cultural transmission always produces the
S-shaped temporal dynamics; and (3) that a combination of environmental
learning and biased cultural transmission can generate S-dynamics but only
when biased cultural transmission is the predominate force in the spread of
new behaviors. These findings suggest that biased cultural transmission
processes are much more important to understanding the diffusion of
innovations and sociocultural evolution than is often assumed by most
theorists.
NOTES:
Unbiased transmission: Naive individuals adopt the behavior of those in a
previous generation.
Forms of biased transmission (p. 997):
"Direct biases result from cues that arise from the interaction of specific
qualities of an idea, belief, practice or value with our social learning
psychology."
"Under prestige-biased transmission, people copy ideas or practices from
individuals with specific qualities or attributes, regardless of the
characteristics of the behaviors or ideas that are copied."
"Finally, under conformist transmission, humans preferentially imitate ideas
and behaviors that are expressed by a majority of the group over traits
expressed by the minority."
* * * * *
"Further evidence for a substantial reliance on cultural transmission comes
from the spread of maladaptive or costly behavioral traits. My analysis
indicates that maladaptive traits may spread against the force of individual
learning ... as long as L and B are sufficiently large. For example, the
practice of bottle-feeding infants spread throughout the Third World despite
the fact that this practice produces higher rates of sickness, infection,
and death in infants under Third World conditions than does breast-feeding."
(pp. 1007-1008)
L: The probability the environmental information is inconclusive.
B: Differences in replicatory propensities for Trait 1 and Trait 2, where
1 is the presence of a novel trait while 2 is the absence of that trait.
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 25 2002 - 15:58:44 GMT