Born to be Cultured

2:35 – An article about “cumulative culture.”

3:25 –There is debate about whether any non-human animals show evidence of cumulative culture. Here is one review of the topic.

6:30 – A paper by Dr. Legare and a colleague on imitation and innovation as “dual engines of cultural learning.”

10:53 – One of Dr. Legare’s studies examining children’s flexible understanding of when to imitate faithfully.

13:07 – A popular article about the puzzle of why chimps in Zambia started to put grass in their ears. The primary research was reported here.

14:25 – The literature on so-called “over-imitation” is substantial. Here is a recent review.

19:14 – An encyclopedia article by Dr. Legare and a colleague on ritual. See also their paper on the social functions of rituals.

25:45 – Here is the original paper report on the “illusion of explanatory depth.”

28:42 – A paper on how a culture’s history of migration affects how often its members smile.

34:45 – This article describes the puzzle of chimpanzees throwing rocks at trees.

40:18 – This paper by Joe Henrich and colleagues is the source of the acronym WEIRD—that is, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic—and is one of the most cited and discussed papers in the last decade of psychology. Here is a recent popular article on the current state of the WEIRD problem. Finally, see this paper by Dr. Legare and colleagues about the WEIRD bias in developmental psychology.

49:00 – Dr. Legare has done a number of studies in Vanuatu, a culturally diverse archipelago in the South Pacific.

49:32 – A study by Dr. Legare and colleagues comparing triadic interactions in the US and in Vanuatu.

55:51 – Barbara Rogoff, mentioned here, has done a range of important work on learning styles across cultures. See, for example, her book, The Cultural Nature of Human Development.

59:55 – A study by Dr. Legare and colleagues showing that adults in the US and Vanuatu differ in how they evaluate the intelligence of conforming vs non-conforming children.