Abstract
Norms and institutions enable large-scale human cooperation by creating shared expectations and changing individuals’ incentives via monitoring or sanctioning. Like material technologies, these social technologies satisfy instrumental ends and solve difficult problems. However, the similarities and differences between the evolution of material technologies and the evolution of social technologies remain unresolved. Here, we review evidence suggesting that, compared to the evolution of material technologies, institutional and normative evolution exhibits constraints in the production of variation and the selection of useful variants. These constraints stem from the frequency-dependent nature of social technologies and limit the pace and scope of normative and institutional evolution. We conclude by reviewing research on the social transmission of institutions and norms and highlighting an experimental paradigm to study their cultural evolution.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 101913 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-7 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Current Opinion in Psychology |
Volume | 60 |
Early online date | 23 Sept 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2024 |
Bibliographical note
This review comes from a themed issue on Norm Change (2024).Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Elsevier Ltd
Keywords
- Cultural evolution
- Institutions
- Norms
- Social learning
- Technology