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How evolved psychological mechanisms empower cultural group selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Joseph Henrich  and
Robert Boyd
Joseph Henrich
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Department of Psychology, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada. joseph.henrich@gmail.com http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/
Robert Boyd
Affiliation:
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287. robert.t.boyd@gmail.com http://robboyd.abcs.asu.edu/
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Abstract

Driven by intergroup competition, social norms, beliefs, and practices can evolve in ways that more effectively tap into a wide variety of evolved psychological mechanisms to foster group-beneficial behavior. The more powerful such evolved mechanisms are, the more effectively culture can potentially harness and manipulate them to generate greater phenotypic variation across groups, thereby fueling cultural group selection.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 39 , 2016 , e40
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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