Japan

Gossip is essential to sustaining cooperation through indirect reciprocity, but it is unclear if and how individuals obtain accurate information through gossip. We examine how information acquired through hearsay influences cooperative decisions in warfare among the Turkana, a politically uncentralized semi-nomadic pastoral population in Kenya. The Turkana engage in cattle raids against neighboring groups in which there is a substantial risk of injury or death. Using vignettes and surveys with 63 Turkana warriors, we obtained information regarding warriors&#39; ratings of the qualities of other warriors, norms about information sharing over different social scales (from kin level to the cultural group at large), the level of consensus in reputation, and real-world instances of decision making in warfare based on gossip. The results indicate that 1) a warrior’s reputation is associated with altruistic bravery, leadership, and combat skill; 2) there are norms regulating sharing other warrior’s reputations; and 3) warriors actively assess reputation when determining who to cooperate with. The findings suggest norms may play a role in making gossip sufficiently accurate, thus facilitating indirect reciprocity as a mechanism of human cooperation.

Cultural Evolution Society 2021

How gossip and reputation shape high-stakes cooperative decisions among Turkana warriors

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Welcome to the third Cultural Evolution Society Conference, CES2021. In the conference, which will be held from June 9-11, 2021, about 180 researchers from East Asia, Oceania, Middle East, Europe, North and South America give presentations on their latest research advancing the evolutionary understanding of human and nonhuman animal culture.

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**Local Organizing Committee:** [Yutaka Horita (Teikyo University)](https://sites.google.com/site/yhoritapage/), [Masanori Takezawa (Hokkaido University)](https://lalalarakko.github.io/), [Ayaka Takimoto (Hokkaido University)](https://lynx.let.hokudai.ac.jp/~takimoto/), [Kohei Tamura (Tohoku University)](https://researchmap.jp/7000017854)

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Gossip is essential to sustaining cooperation through indirect reciprocity, but it is unclear if and how individuals obtain accurate information through gossip. We examine how information acquired through hearsay influences cooperative decisions in warfare among the Turkana, a politically uncentralized semi-nomadic pastoral population in Kenya. The Turkana engage in cattle raids against neighboring groups in which there is a substantial risk of injury or death. Using vignettes and surveys with 63 Turkana warriors, we obtained information regarding warriors' ratings of the qualities of other warriors, norms about information sharing over different social scales (from kin level to the cultural group at large), the level of consensus in reputation, and real-world instances of decision making in warfare based on gossip. The results indicate that 1) a warrior’s reputation is associated with altruistic bravery, leadership, and combat skill; 2) there are norms regulating sharing other warrior’s reputations; and 3) warriors actively assess reputation when determining who to cooperate with. The findings suggest norms may play a role in making gossip sufficiently accurate, thus facilitating indirect reciprocity as a mechanism of human cooperation.

technical paper

How do we integrate the evolutionary dynamics of populations with the cultural context of individual minds? One way involves combining common ancestry approaches to cultural evolution with a dynamical representation of the cultural milieu. This yields a flexible representation of complex cultural systems, encompassing trees (logistic maps and phylogenies) and highly-reticulating (fractal structures and hairball networks) structures alike. 

We characterize the outputs of Contextual Geometric Structures (CGS) in the context of nonlinear and cyclic outputs. CGS models are computational kernels that represent cultural phenomena in conceptual space. CGS kernels draw from a number of theoretical concepts, including: conceptual blending, structuralism/post-structuralism, and fuzzy computation. A single CGS can be of any shape, and are used to classify perceptual inputs as singular or multiple semantic interpretations. These shapes are mapped to natural phenomena such as light, temperature, and rotational forces that a population of individuals might encounter via sensory experience. In a similar way, multiple cultural contexts can be represented in the same space, which can be accessed by a single agent, or even multiple agents. 

We will show how agent-based models of cultural dynamics can be used to unlock the potential of neural representational models. CGS kernels can also be combined with connectionist and agent-based models to yield multiple representations of the cognitive world. Most relevant to cultural evolution, CGS kernels provide a generative model of cultural diversity, which allows us to examine the combinatorial richness of the evolutionary process.

Examining Cultural Evolution with Contextual Geometric Structures

The cultural evolutionary perspective is currently being adopted by scholars of early Christianity and the Bible. This paper looks at how the perspective can change the study of the apostle Paul and Pauline traditions. Pauline studies are still dominated by a discourse on the real, historical Paul. What did Paul really say or mean and who understood him correctly? Are all the letters in the New Testament canon written in Paul’s name really by Paul himself? The questions of origins and authenticity are emphasized by religiously and academically motivated theologians alike. The perspective of cultural evolution, with its idea of the naturalness of variety, can profoundly challenge this baseline. 
Another question concerns the study of the transmission of Pauline ideas in Christian and other literature and practice. This “reception of Paul,” as it is called in the Biblical Studies, although widely studied, has often been captive of the authenticity discussion but also suffered from a lack of rigorous scientific methods and explanations for the transmission of cultural information. The transmission of Pauline ideas includes the idea of Paul himself as either a positive ingroup prototype or a negative outgroup stereotype. Both appear in literature with fascinating variations but tend to be discussed separately because of their affiliation with competing groups. The cultural evolutionary perspective, however, can help to highlight the shared nature of traditions between different groups and hopefully even act as a vehicle for interreligious understanding.

How can cultural evolution change the study of the apostle Paul?

Humans have a psychological tendency to support a strong leader in times of danger, but not in times of peace and security. This psychological pattern has evolved in primeval times as a way to overcome the collective action problem in violent inter-group conflict, according to a new theory called regality theory. People become authoritarian and bellicose as a reaction to perceived collective danger, while peace and security leads to egalitarian and tolerant political attitudes. This balance between authoritarianism and egalitarianism is reflected in many aspects of politics, culture, morals, sexuality, religion, and even in art and music. This makes regality theory very useful for many applications in sociology, history, psychology, politics, and peace research. Examples include explanations of the rise and fall of empires, World War II, psychological warfare, witch hunts, and psychological reactions to the terrorism events of 9/11.

Regality theory is supported by statistical studies on both ancient and modern societies. The theory has successfully predicted correlations between many cultural variables. 

Applications of this theory is discussed with several examples.

Authoritarianism and egalitarianism explained by evolutionary psychology

Cultural evolution is an interdisciplinary movement, but some disciplines are not yet well represented. Sociology -- despite sharing many core questions in common -- has hardly engaged with the field of cultural evolution. In this presentation, I briefly consider the reasons why sociologists have been absent from this conversation. Then I outline how sociologists can make a meaningful contribution to cultural evolution research. I argue that sociological research is especially relevant to work on changing beliefs, subcultural differences, cultural mechanisms of stratification, and the role of social networks in cultural change. I conclude by describing some concrete steps I believe will facilitate a greater integration between cultural evolution and sociology in the future.

Sociology and Cultural Evolution: Obstacles and Future Directions

It is standard to understand natural selection as necessarily being blind or, to put it in less ableist terms, to exclude intentional design. Social scientists often critique cultural evolution theory as being redundant, on the grounds that the relevant explanatory work can be done in terms of intentional decisions made by humans. Cultural evolutionists often seek examples of outcomes that plausibly cannot be viewed as intentional – for example, Henrich focusses on the evolution of manioc processing, where the explanation of the benefits is thought to be opaque to most participants (Henrich 2017). 
Mesoudi 2008 gives us reason to think that intentional design should not guide the production of variants. But less has been said about why intention must be excluded when it comes to the selection of variants, as in cases of ‘direct bias’ (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Amundsen 1989).
I argue that we should resist this, and simply view intentional action by humans as one possible driver of a selection process. From the perspective of Universal Darwinism, as long as there is heredity and variation in copy rate, the presence of intention in an evolutionary process is irrelevant. If I am right, then a major source of skepticism about the value of cultural evolution theory in explaining processes such as the workings of science can be undercut, and the evidence base for cultural evolution theory hugely expanded. Intentional design need not exclude cultural evolution, but can, instead, be understood as one of its variables.

Why does cultural selection need to be blind?

In addition to survival in the hostile world, violence has overcome its biological nature, being ingrained in the subjects and in society. Thus, it comes to these violent provocations due to the factual potential of the subjects to live and / or expect violence in Brazil. A timeless phenomenon that operates mainly among the vulnerable, reshaping their relationships in different social spaces. In the Brazilian context, schools stand out, which between 2009 and 2018 recorded an alarming increase of more than 800% in the occurrences of violence (2009, n = 661; 2018, n = 6,242). Public data from the governmental platform “Diseases and Notification Information System” also reveals that, in the time frame, the occurrences (n = 34,632) are concentrated in the Southeast and Southern regions of the country, the State of São Paulo being the epicenter (29 , 0%; n = 10,257), a space characterized by the relevant economic flow, high population density and urbanization. Set the types of violence, the most recorded are those of physical impetus, affecting mostly female victims (56.8%; n = 19.693) between 0-19 years old (87.5%; n = 30.354), following the school age indicated in the basic documents of national education. Perhaps this is not yet a reliable picture of violence in Brazilian schools, due to the more than 8 million square kilometers of territorial extension, finds it difficult to establish a comprehensive notification, challenged by a diversity of situations and purposes, individual and collective, narrate along with social inequalities the most different contexts (school or not) and perceptions of violence.

Socio-spatial Profile of Violence in Brazilian Schools (2009-2018)

What led to the evolution of theories and models across various scientific fields, and how do these arguments and paradigms frame their historical trajectory? One (unsatisfying) answer is that each field has its own personalities and historical context, generating a large number of potential trajectories in the process. By contrast, the notion of history converges on the same answer due to the universality of certain truths also raises more questions than answers. 

To understand how these trajectories form and sustain over decades or even centuries, an agent-based model of intellectual cultural evolution will be proposed. At the level of individual agents, cultural evolution is characterized using a dual inheritance model: mentor-mentee transmission (genealogical) and peer-to-peer transmission (sociocultural learning). We also advocate for combining phylogenetic approaches to genealogy with cybernetic models of sociocultural learning. Common ancestral fields diverge over time as subfields form and become epistemically isolated. When ideas are constrained by field-specific boundaries, we can observe linguistic and even semantic divergence. Reintegration of genealogical branches (reticulations) are also useful in understanding how ideas are shared between fields. Collaborations and interactions resulting from sociocultural learning will produce reticulating cycles amongst our phylogenetic branching relationships. 

In this way, we demonstrate that future trajectories can be approximated as a series of divergence and regulatory events. Our approach can be more broadly applied to the phenomenology of evolution. More generally, we can attach each level of inheritance to levels of evolutionary description: nonlinear regulatory processes being the proximal description, and tree structures serving as the ultimate description. These insights may also help illuminate unexplored areas within the map of possible evolutionary paths.

Charting the Future of Academic Fields with Cultural Evolutionary Trajectories

Presented is a force-based alternative to the transmission-based model of cultural evolution. The premise is that the majority of cultural evolution is Darwinian selection that occurs in the mind. The selection is driven by internal and external stressors (forces) leading to creative tension. Transmission is viewed as a source of variation and stressors, not heredity. 

One barrier to a force-view of cultural evolution is that biological evolution has not served as a helpful exemplar. The forces in natural selection are traditionally misidentified (or ignored). Here the forces of natural selection are environmental stressors acting on individuals, not natural selection itself. With this understanding, I will present the cultural evolutionary analogs to the dimensions of biological evolution including phenotype, variation, heredity, driving forces, fitness, and generations.

The impetus for this view of cultural evolution comes from the study of strategy and innovation developed in part during my 25 years at E.I. DuPont, the multinational chemical and materials company. In addition to my scientific role there, I held positions in business, venture management and strategic planning. 

I will show how the force-based model aligns with an adaptive view of strategy theory and practice. Understanding how stressors act on ideas, processes, and technologies is key to enabling innovation in all endeavors.

A Force-based Model of Cultural Evolution with Application to Business Strategy

Why do people choose to follow a demanding moral authority even in situations in which a less demanding alternative exists? Can social imitation alone sustain meaningful moral equilibrium? Why is moral authority concentrated in the sense that multiple individuals follow the same authority? What factors underpin and limit the power of moral authorities, and why do authorities lose influence? This paper addresses these questions by developing a formal choice-theoretic model of moral authorities, moral standards, and moral behavior. We show that sustaining meaningful moral behavior is only possible if some actors choose to provide, and others choose to follow, a person providing moral guidance through their behavior. Our theory builds on literature in cultural evolution, biology, and psychology on how human pro-sociality has become an adaptive trait. In an extension of our model, we analyze the role of the state. We show that only two types of states can maximize social welfare: morally liberal states with low redistribution, or, morally conservative states with high redistribution.

A Theory of Moral Authority: Moral Choices Under Moral Network Externality

Researchers hypothesize that we have an evolved partner choice psychology that tracks the cooperative reputations of others and compete for access to cooperative partners, such as by sharing more with cooperative partners. However, recent models and evidence suggest cultural institutions shape this partner choice psychology, questioning its universality. We test the universality of a preference for more cooperative partners in the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. Ninety-two Hadza ranked eight of their campmates on generosity and foraging ability and then played a game in which they could direct finite resources to those campmates. We found that Hadza with greater exposure to other cultures, such as via schooling or participating in the market economy, shared more preferentially with campmates they ranked higher on generosity, whereas Hadza with lower exposure showed no preference to sharing with generous campmates. However, this moderating effect was specific to generosity—regardless of exposure, Hadza did not share more preferentially with campmates ranked higher on foraging ability. These results suggest that cultural institutions can shape Hadza partner choice psychology and that preference for more generous and cooperative partners is a product of cultural, rather than genetic, evolution.

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