Social network architecture and the tempo of cumulative cultural evolution

Abstract

The ability to build upon previous knowledge—cumulative cultural evolution (CCE)—is a hallmark of human societies. While CCE depends on the interaction between social systems, cognition and the environment, there is increasing evidence that CCE is facilitated by larger and more structured societies. However, the relative importance of social network architecture as an additional factor shaping CCE remains unclear. By simulating innovation and diffusion of cultural traits in populations with stereotyped social structures, we disentangle the relative contributions of network architecture from those of population size and connectivity. We demonstrate that while multilevel societies can promote the recombination of cultural traits into high-value products, they also hinder spread and make products more likely to go extinct. We find that transmission mechanisms are therefore critical in determining the outcomes of CCE. Our results highlight the complex interaction between population size, structure and transmission mechanisms, with important implications for future research.

Social Information use Shapes the Coevolution of Sociality and Virulence

“…having a disproportionate preference for copying a more common behaviour (Aplin et al 2015a)] or if they require passing a certain threshold number of informed contacts before becoming informed (Rosenthal et al 2015). These can modify how transmission pathways emerge from social contacts, and recent studies of how information is accumulated and integrated into cultural traits in structured populations have suggested that transmission properties, rather than contact structure, have the most significant impact on cultural evolution in networks (Cantor et al 2021a). Such findings are highly relevant to the spread of infectious diseases (Sah et al 2017; Evans et al 2020); for example complex parasitic life cycles can impact how social contacts translate to transmission events (Grear et al 2013; Farine 2017).…”

“…While social structure, variation in social strategies, and social contact dynamics might be important, studies simulating disease transmission suggest that the importance of social structure in shaping parasite transmission is likely to be over-stated (Sah et al 2017). Recent studies of how information is accumulated and integrated into cultural traits in structured populations have also suggested that transmission properties, rather than contact structure, have the most significant impact on cultural evolution in networks (Cantor et al 2021a). For example, individuals can use different learning rules, such as conformist transmission [e.g.…”

Cultural diffusion dynamics depend on behavioural production rules

“…Degree was important to standardize between networks for any comparison, as the probabilities of behaviour acquisition from the NBDA equations are degree dependent. We did not include complete networks, as complete networks are an unrealistic baseline for cultural models [47].…”

“…Agents are risk-adverse, seeking higher expected payoffs Agents are risk-neutral, weighing expected payoffs proportionally Agents are risk-tolerant, indifferent to expected payoffs values) but have excluded these from the main text, as the effect of network structure and social transmission on diffusion is a well-explored subject [48,49,50]. The baseline learning rate was set to λ b = 0.05, the social transmission rate was set to s = 5.…”

The social transmission of stress in animal collectives

“…one-to-one versus one-to-many) having a greater impact than differences in mechanisms (e.g. indirect cues versus signals) [33]. For example, heart rate matching [34] or signalling a threat to a social partner could have more similar group-level outcomes (e.g.…”