Theory and Observation in Cultural Transmission
- 1 October 1982
- journal article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 218 (4567), 19-27
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7123211
Abstract
Cultural phenomena may show considerable stability over time and space. Transmission mechanisms responsible for their maintenance are worthy of theoretical and empirical inquiry; they are complex and each possible pathway has different effects on evolutionary stability of traits, as can be shown theoretically. A survey designed to evaluate the importance of some components of cultural transmission on a variety of traits showed that religion and politics are mostly determined in the family, a mode of transmission which guarantees high evolutionary stability and maintenance of high variation between and within groups.This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
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