Скачать или смотреть RCGD Seminar Series: How Cultural Norms Structure the Evolution of Human Behavior and Psychology

Culturally transmitted norms have likely structured the selection pressures shaping human behavior and psychology, but focused studies are needed to establish the exact pathways and outcomes of this co-evolutionary process. Sarah Mathew (Arizona State University) presents two studies which incorporate our long-standing cultural capacity to develop hypotheses of human behavior in the context of cooperation and conflict. The first study illustrates how competition between culturally differentiated populations, i.e. cultural group selection, structures the social scale of cooperation in transient interactions with strangers. The second study shows how certain features of combat-related psychological stress can be explained as a psychological adaptation to culturally-structured normative landscapes. Data for these studies were collected in pastoral communities living in northwest Kenya.

This talk was given on March 4, 2024 as part of the Group Dynamics Seminar series, considered one of the longest running seminar series in the social sciences. It has been running uninterruptedly since it was founded by Kurt Lewin in the 1920’s in Berlin.

Since its establishment in 1948, the Research Center for Group Dynamics’ mission has been to advance the understanding of human behavior in social contexts. Learn more about RCGD and its interdisciplinary Group Dynamics seminars from http://rcgd.isr.umich.edu/.
The Winter 2024 Series was co-sponsored by the Evolution and Human Adaptation Program (EHAP) at the University of Michigan.