Multilevel cultural evolution: From new theory to practical applications

Wilson, David Sloan; Madhavan, Guruprasad; Gelfand, Michele J.; Hayes, Steven C.; Atkins, Paul W. B.; Colwell, Rita R.

doi:10.1073/pnas.2218222120

Cited by 25 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…S. Wilson, 2016). While cultural evolutionary and other social science perspectives on cultural change have, at times, been at odds, there are recent attempts to bring them together (e.g., Seitz et al, 2020; D. S. Wilson et al, 2023).…”

Section: Conclusion and Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

We built this culture (so we can change it): Seven principles for intentional culture change.

Hamedani,

Markus,

Hetey

et al. 2024

American Psychologist

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Calls for culture change abound. Headlines regularly feature calls to change the "broken" or "toxic" cultures of institutions and organizations, and people debate which norms and practices across society are now defunct. As people blame current societal problems on culture, the proposed fix is "culture change." But what is culture change? How does it work? Can it be effective? This article presents a novel social psychological framework for intentional culture change-actively and deliberately modifying the mutually reinforcing features of a culture. Synthesizing insights from research and application, it proposes an integrated, evidence-based perspective centered around seven core principles for intentional culture change: Principle 1: People are culturally shaped shapers, so they can be culture changers; Principle 2: Identifying, mapping, and evaluating the key levels of culture helps locate where to target change; Principle 3: Culture change happens in both top-down and bottom-up ways and is more effective when the levels are in alignment; Principle 4: Culture change can be easier when it leverages existing core values and harder when it challenges deep-seated defaults and biases; Principle 5: Culture change typically involves power struggles and identity threats; Principle 6: Cultures interact with one another and change can cause backlash, resistance, and clashes; and Principle 7: Timing and readiness matter. While these principles may be broadly used, here they are applied to the issue of social inequality in the United States. Even though culture change feels particularly daunting in this problem area, it can also be empowering-especially when people leverage evidence-based insights and tools to reimagine and rebuild their cultures. Public Significance StatementCalls for culture change abound. Headlines regularly feature calls to change the "broken" or "toxic" cultures of the police, the workplace, U.S. politics, and more, and norms and practices across society are hotly debated. The proposed fix is "culture change." But what is culture change? How does it work? And can it be effective? This article presents an emerging social psychological framework for intentional culture change, with a focus on behavioral change and addressing societal disparities in the United States.

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Section: Conclusion and Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

We built this culture (so we can change it): Seven principles for intentional culture change.

Hamedani,

Markus,

Hetey

et al. 2024

American Psychologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our relatively broad approach to defining evolutionary traps in the human context should be seen in the context of continuing debates about how to conceptualize fitness for species with traits that are subject to intentional and cumulative cultural evolution [41][42][43]. We do not aim to solve those discussions here, but instead choose to be pragmatic in conceptualizing impacts of evolutionary traps in terms of human well-being.…”

Section: Making Sense Of Human Evolutionary Trapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The advantage of this pragmatism is that we can investigate multiple evolutionary dynamics that interact to impact diverse aspects of human life. Another advantage is that it allows us to also take seriously the aforementioned human capacities, which means that humans can strive to make positive impacts on-sometimes normative-goals, such as well-being [16,43].…”

Section: Making Sense Of Human Evolutionary Trapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…when new sources of energy and new forms of mobility have been adopted [47,[50][51][52]. At the global level, the lack of an out-group for cultural selection means that global cooperation is likely to be more unstable compared with lower levels [10,53].…”

Section: (A) Multi-level Selection and Global Trapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In studies of non-human evolutionary traps, organisms can escape through adaptive genetic responses or some form of learning [171]. In humans, the relevant question is how humans can intentionally evolve culturally through socially and ecologically inclusive processes to pursue this relationship [11,16,43,172].…”

Section: Navigating Traps: Evolving Toward Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability

Søgaard Jørgensen,

Jansen,

Avila Ortega

et al. 2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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The Anthropocene is characterized by accelerating change and global challenges of increasing complexity. Inspired by what some have called a polycrisis, we explore whether the human trajectory of increasing complexity and influence on the Earth system could become a form of trap for humanity. Based on an adaptation of the evolutionary traps concept to a global human context, we present results from a participatory mapping. We identify 14 traps and categorize them as either global, technology or structural traps. An assessment reveals that 12 traps (86%) could be in an advanced phase of trapping with high risk of hard-to-reverse lock-ins and growing risks of negative impacts on human well-being. Ten traps (71%) currently see growing trends in their indicators. Revealing the systemic nature of the polycrisis, we assess that Anthropocene traps often interact reinforcingly (45% of pairwise interactions), and rarely in a dampening fashion (3%). We end by discussing capacities that will be important for navigating these systemic challenges in pursuit of global sustainability. Doing so, we introduce evolvability as a unifying concept for such research between the sustainability and evolutionary sciences. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis’.

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Knowledge sources, narratives, and living in social-ecological systems

Cockerill,

Glynn,

Cerrutti

et al. 2024

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

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Humans exist as part of social-ecological systems (SES) in which biological, physical, chemical, economic, political and other social processes are tightly interwoven. Global change within these systems presents an increasingly untenable situation for long-term human security. Further, knowledge that humans possess about ourselves and SES represents a complex amalgamation of individual and collective factors. Because of various evolutionary pressures, people often reject this complex reality in favor of more simplistic perceptions and explanations. This thought paper offers an overview of how and where people acquire knowledge and how that knowledge acquisition process reflects and influences narratives, which subsequently affect efforts to address challenges in SES. We highlight three narratives as examples of constraints on finding ways forward toward a more resilient future. Our focal narratives include tendencies to conflate tame and wicked problems; to posit a false human-nature duality; and to resist the explanatory evidence from biocultural evolution. We then discuss the human cognitive propensity to create narratives to think about how we might intentionally develop narratives that are more appropriate for living in coevolving SES.

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Multilevel cultural evolution: From new theory to practical applications

Cited by 25 publications

References 70 publications

We built this culture (so we can change it): Seven principles for intentional culture change.

We built this culture (so we can change it): Seven principles for intentional culture change.

Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability

Knowledge sources, narratives, and living in social-ecological systems

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