Group Selection in the Evolution of Religion: Genetic Evolution or Cultural Evolution?

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 235-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Genetic Group ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Religious Psychology ◽  
Religious Evolution ◽  
The Relationship

In the scientific literature on religious evolution, two competing theories appeal to group selection to explain the relationship between religious belief and altruism, or costly, prosocial behavior. Both theories agree that group selection plays an important role in cultural evolution, affecting psychological traits that individuals acquire through social learning. They disagree, however, about whether group selection has also played a role in genetic evolution, affecting traits that are inherited genetically. Recently, Jonathan Haidt has defended the most fully developed account based on genetic group selection, and I argue here that problems with this account reveal good reasons to doubt that genetic group selection has played any important role in human evolution at all. Thus, considering the role of group selection in religious evolution is important not just because of what it reveals about religious psychology and religious evolution, but also because of what it reveals about the role of group selection in human evolution more generally.

scholarly journals Social Entrepreneurship and Psychological Well-being in Teaching Candidates: Mediator Role of Hope

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 505-524
Author(s):  
Esra Asıcı
Keyword(s):  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediator Role ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Teaching Candidates

The investigation and supporting variables related to the mental health of teaching candidates is important since teachers’ psychological traits will affect students’ personal, social, and academic development. In this paper, the intermediary role of hope in the relationship between the social entrepreneurship characteristics and psychological well-being of teaching candidates was investigated. The sample consisted of 855 teaching candidates were chosen randomly. The data were collected by using the Psychological Well-being Scale, the Social Entrepreneurship Characteristics of the Pre-service Teachers’ Scale, the Dispositional Hope Scale and a Demographic Information Form. In the analysis descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, and regression-based bootstrapping method were used. The results showed that teaching candidates’ social entrepreneurship characteristics were positively and significantly correlated with psychological well-being and two components of hope (alternative ways of thinking and actuating thinking). Besides, it was found that alternative ways of thinking and actuating thinking had partial mediating roles in the relationship between teaching candidates’ social entrepreneurship characteristics and psychological well-being. The obtained findings were discussed in the light of related literature and suggestions were offered.

scholarly journals Predisposition to Impulsivity and Risk-taking: Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4) Polymorphic Gene Linked to “Novelty Seeking” Personality Trait

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Robyn Winterbottom
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Novelty Seeking ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Functional Polymorphisms ◽  
Trait Impulsivity ◽  
Polymorphic Gene ◽  
D4 Receptor ◽  
The Relationship

Genetic variation may play a significant role in the expression of complex personality and psychological traits. This article examines the relationship between heritable biological mechanisms and the psychological trait, impulsivity. In particular, dopamine is proposed to play a role in impulsive behaviours, and numerous studies have implicated functional polymorphisms of dopamine-related genes in impulsivity. This article reviews several studies concerning the role of dopamine receptor (DRD4) polymorphisms in the expression of an impulsivity sub-trait known as “novelty seeking”. Furthermore, this article focuses on recent approaches to the study of genetic variation, approaches to the measurement of novelty seeking, as well as other possible regulators of the trait in addition to genetics. 

scholarly journals The Cultural Evolution of Language

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Bailes ◽  
Christine Cuskley
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
The Relationship

Language is one of only a handful of human cultural systems that is both unique to our species, and universal. This chapter will focus on the cultural evolution of language, situating this alongside the phylogenetic and developmental timescales which also feed into the evolution of language. The chapter begins by outlining the relationship between the emergence of human language and the language faculty and the more rapid, ongoing processes of language change, which are often framed as predominantly cultural. In particular, previous work has emphasised how these timescales interact, and how cultural factors in particular shape which aspects of language exhibit broad cross-cultural variation or stability. This is followed by detailed evidence for this relationship from three domains, focusing on the role of cultural evolution in language as observed in natural language (both historical corpora and cross linguistic data), the cultural evolution of language in agent-based models, and finally, experimental studies of the cultural evolution of language. We conclude that the study of the cultural evolution of language forms an important data-rich model for the study of the evolution of cultural systems more generally, while also providing key insights into the specific dynamics of this uniquely human behaviour.

scholarly journals Self-Handicapping in Chinese Medical Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Academic Anxiety, Procrastination and Hardiness

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Jia ◽  
Lin-lin Wang ◽  
Jia-bin Xu ◽  
Xian-hao Lin ◽  
Bin Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Mediating Effects ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Academic Anxiety ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Chinese Medical Students ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Anxiety Questionnaire

Background: In the face of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak, Chinese medical students worried about their future studies which might make them more susceptible to academic anxiety. Previous studies have shown that academic anxiety is an important risk factor for self-handicapping, but there are few studies to explore the relationship between the two which may be mediated or moderated by other variables. Therefore, this study investigated how Chinese medical students' academic anxiety is correlated to their self-handicapping in time of COVID-19 epidemic, and explored the moderating and mediating effects of hardiness and procrastination.Methods: In this study, 320 Chinese medical students' psychological traits were measured with Academic Anxiety Questionnaire, Self-Handicapping Scale, General Procrastination Scale and Hardiness Scale to explore the potential associations between these variables.Results: The most obvious finding to emerge from this study was that self- handicapping had a positive correlation with academic anxiety and procrastination, but had a negative correlation with hardiness; hardiness had a negative association with academic anxiety and procrastination; and academic anxiety and procrastination were positively correlated. In addition, the relationship between academic anxiety and self-handicapping of Chinese medical students was not only partially mediated by procrastination, but also moderated by hardiness. Furthermore, medical students who had lower hardiness had stronger direct effect, while the indirect effect was strong at high and low conditions of hardiness.Conclusion: In time of the COVID-19 epidemic, the academic anxiety and self-handicapping of medical students are influenced by procrastination and hardiness to a great extent. Thus, in addition to suggesting that more attention should be paid to the academic anxiety and procrastination of medical students, in the future, more attention should be paid to cultivating the hardiness of medical students and exerting its interventional role in self-handicapping.

scholarly journals The role of population size in folk tune complexity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Street ◽  
Tuomas Eerola ◽  
Jeremy Kendal
Keyword(s):  
Population Size ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Complexity ◽  
Aesthetic Preference ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
The Relationship

A positive correlation between population size and cultural complexity is perhaps one of the most consistent findings in the field of cultural evolution. However, previous findings are largely based on studies of technology and are not necessarily generalisable across diverse cultural domains. We investigate the relationship between population size and complexity in music using Irish folk session tunes as a case study. Using analyses of a large online folk tune dataset, we show that tunes played by larger communities of musicians have diversified into a greater number of different versions but are intermediate in melodic complexity. These results suggest that while larger populations create more frequent opportunities for musical innovation, they encourage convergence upon intermediate levels of melodic complexity due to a widespread inverse U-shaped relationship between complexity and aesthetic preference. Our results show that the relationship between population size and cultural complexity is domain-dependent, rather than universal.

scholarly journals The Creative Process of Cultural Evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liane Gabora
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Agent Based Model ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Scientific Framework

This chapter explores how we can better understand culture by understanding the creative processes that fuel it, and better understand creativity by examining it from its cultural context. First, it summarizes attempts to develop a scientific framework for how culture evolves, and it explores what these frameworks imply for the role of creativity in cultural evolution. Next it examines how questions about the relationship between creativity and cultural evolution have been addressed using an agent-based model in which neural network-based agents collectively generate increasingly fit ideas by building on previous ideas and imitating neighbors’ ideas. Finally, it outlines studies of how creative outputs are influenced, in perhaps unexpected ways, by other ideas and individuals, and how individual creative styles “peek through” cultural outputs in different domains.

scholarly journals Long-term gene–culture coevolution and the human evolutionary transition

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1952) ◽  
pp. 20210538
Author(s):  
Timothy M. Waring ◽  
Zachary T. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Adaptive Potential ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Genetic Inheritance ◽  
Inheritance System

It has been suggested that the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI). But there is disagreement about how to apply the ETI framework to our species, and whether culture is implicated as either cause or consequence. Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) is also poorly understood. Some have argued that culture steers human evolution, while others proposed that genes hold culture on a leash. We review the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans and find a set of common themes. First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance and is probably driving human evolution. The evolutionary impact of culture occurs mainly through culturally organized groups, which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by an evolutionary transition in inheritance (from genes to culture) which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Thus, research on GCC should focus on the possibility of an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

scholarly journals Work Attitudes and Work Ethic as Predictors of Work Engagement among Polish Employees

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Czerw ◽  
Damian Grabowski
Keyword(s):  
Career Counseling ◽  
Work Engagement ◽  
Work Ethic ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Important Conclusion ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Central Value ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between work engagement and the psychological traits of employees, such as attitudes towards work and work ethic. Additionally, the study included demographic characteristics of employees and organizational characteristics. Research was conducted using the Polish adaptations of two well known methods: Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile and Utrecht Work Enagagement Scale, as well as the Work Attitude Questionnaire (WAQ) - a new Polish method. 360 adult employees of two large Polish regions took part in the study. The analysis showed a significant influence of hedonic-autotelic attitude, as well as four dimensions of work ethic on work engagement. It seems to be an important conclusion that work engagement turned out to be far more determined by the subject’s psychological traits than demographic and organizational ones. These results, indicating the special role of the perception of work as a central value, can be used only in the area of attitudes towards work formed during adolescence (e.g., at school, in career counseling) but also in the area of motivating the employees by the organization.

Cultural evolution need not imply group selection

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorsa Amir ◽  
Matthew R. Jordan ◽  
David G. Rand
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Individual Selection ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Historical Accident

AbstractRicherson et al. make a compelling case for cultural evolution. In focusing on cultural group selection, however, they neglect important individual-level accounts of cultural evolution. While scientific discourse typically links cultural evolution to group selection and genetic evolution to individual selection, this association is due to historical accident only. We thus call for more consideration of individual-level cultural evolution.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

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