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Rates of cultural change and patterns of cultural accumulation in stochastic models of social transmission

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  • Aoki, Kenichi
  • Lehmann, Laurent
  • Feldman, Marcus W.

Abstract

Cultural variation in a population is affected by the rate of occurrence of cultural innovations, whether such innovations are preferred or eschewed, how they are transmitted between individuals in the population, and the size of the population. An innovation, such as a modification in an attribute of a handaxe, may be lost or may become a property of all handaxes, which we call “fixation of the innovation.†Alternatively, several innovations may attain appreciable frequencies, in which case properties of the frequency distribution—for example, of handaxe measurements—is important. Here we apply the Moran model from the stochastic theory of population genetics to study the evolution of cultural innovations. We obtain the probability that an initially rare innovation becomes fixed, and the expected time this takes. When variation in cultural traits is due to recurrent innovation, copy error, and sampling from generation to generation, we describe properties of this variation, such as the level of heterogeneity expected in the population. For all of these, we determine the effect of the mode of social transmission: conformist, where there is a tendency for each naïve newborn to copy the most popular variant; pro-novelty bias, where the newborn prefers a specific variant if it exists among those it samples; one-to-many transmission, where the variant one individual carries is copied by all newborns while that individual remains alive. We compare our findings with those predicted by prevailing theories for rates of cultural change and the distribution of cultural variation.

Suggested Citation

  • Aoki, Kenichi & Lehmann, Laurent & Feldman, Marcus W., 2011. "Rates of cultural change and patterns of cultural accumulation in stochastic models of social transmission," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 79(4), pages 192-202.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:79:y:2011:i:4:p:192-202
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2011.02.001
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Kobayashi, Yutaka & Wakano, Joe Yuichiro & Ohtsuki, Hisashi, 2018. "Genealogies and ages of cultural traits: An application of the theory of duality to the research on cultural evolution," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 18-27.
    2. Nakamura, Mitsuhiro & Wakano, Joe Yuichiro & Aoki, Kenichi & Kobayashi, Yutaka, 2020. "The popularity spectrum applied to a cross-cultural question," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 104-116.
    3. Aoki, Kenichi & Feldman, Marcus W., 2014. "Evolution of learning strategies in temporally and spatially variable environments: A review of theory," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 3-19.
    4. David K. Levine & Salvatore Modica, 2012. "Conflict and the evolution of societies," Working Papers 2012-032, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. Takahashi, Takuya & Ihara, Yasuo, 2022. "Application of a Markovian ancestral model to the temporal and spatial dynamics of cultural evolution on a population network," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 14-29.
    6. Kobayashi, Yutaka & Kurokawa, Shun & Ishii, Takuya & Wakano, Joe Yuichiro, 2021. "Time to extinction of a cultural trait in an overlapping generation model," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 32-45.
    7. David K Levine & Salvatore Modica, 2020. "State Power and Conflict Driven Evolution," Levine's Working Paper Archive 11694000000000014, David K. Levine.
    8. Andrew Buskell & Magnus Enquist & Fredrik Jansson, 2019. "A systems approach to cultural evolution," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Takahashi, Takuya & Ihara, Yasuo, 2019. "Cultural and evolutionary dynamics with best-of-k learning when payoffs are uncertain," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 27-38.
    10. Aoki, Kenichi, 2015. "Modeling abrupt cultural regime shifts during the Palaeolithic and Stone Age," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 6-12.
    11. Kobayashi, Yutaka & Aoki, Kenichi, 2012. "Innovativeness, population size and cumulative cultural evolution," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 38-47.
    12. Wakano, Joe Yuichiro & Gilpin, William & Kadowaki, Seiji & Feldman, Marcus W. & Aoki, Kenichi, 2018. "Ecocultural range-expansion scenarios for the replacement or assimilation of Neanderthals by modern humans," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 3-14.

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