Natural selection shaped psychological mechanisms that determine which cultural beliefs persist.

Evidence

Unlike other animal species, much of the variation among human groups is cultural: genetically similar people living in similar environments exhibit strikingly different patterns of behavior because they have different, culturally acquired beliefs and values. Such cultural transmission is based on complex, derived psychological mechanisms that are likely to have been shaped by natural selection. It is important to understand the nature of these evolved psychological mechanisms because they determine which beliefs and values spread and persist in human groups. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 3

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets up the core problem: culture as an evolved, selected phenomenon rather than arbitrary learned content.
• XREF: connects to: Cumulative cultural evolution drives selection for brains specialized to acquire cultural information. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 218; Culturally transmitted skills created selection pressures shaping human anatomy and physiology — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 313; Natural selection built cultural learning that can overwrite innate preferences — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 365 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Cultural evolution fills in god content within evolved mentalizing constraints #expands (0.85)
• Evolutionary psychology explains present psychological processes as adaptations to ancestral environmental problems. #qualifies (0.82) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 489
• Cultural selection shaped psychology to read supernatural-belief cues for trustworthiness #expands (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 211
• Cultural evolution can create selection pressures stronger than natural ones #complicates (0.78) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 282
• Religious survival advantage resists explanation by individual or genetic selection #complicates (0.76)
• Structural psychological and cultural explanations of belief are mutually implicated and inseparable #responds-to (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 169
• Cultural evolution can lock groups into maladaptive equilibria, not just prosocial ones #complicates (0.74)
• Cultural selection and genetic adaptation theories of supernatural punishment differ fundamentally #complicates (0.72) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 443