Cognitations EP #2 | Cognitive Approaches To Studying Culture | Olivier Morin
Oct 1, 2023
Olivier Morin, a tenured CNRS researcher at the Jean Nicod Institute and author of How Traditions Live and Die, dives into the fascinating world of cultural evolution. He explores how culture encompasses everything from art to social norms, discussing the complex factors driving cultural transmission and the distinction between micro-level and macro-level processes. Morin also examines non-imitative mechanisms in cultural transmission and the unique aspects of human culture compared to animal traditions. His insights offer a fresh perspective on how we understand the evolution of cultural practices.
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Cultural Evolution Connects Cognition And Culture
- Cultural evolution is a way to make the study of culture legitimate within cognitive science by tying culture to cognitive mechanisms and models.
- It imports theory-driven, quantitative tools from biology while focusing on cognition to explain cultural patterns.
Culture Requires Long Transmission Chains
- Culture, scientifically, requires social learning and long chains of transmission that span generations.
- Culture is a phenomenon to explain, not an explanation itself or a catch-all for non-genetic traits.
From Transmission To Enduring Traditions
- The core puzzle is how micro-level social learning produces macro-level, stable traditions across populations.
- Transmission mechanisms are many, but the hard problem is explaining repeated, population-level proliferation.
