Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:28:06.213Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Theory and Research in Cultural Transmission: A Short History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Ute Schönpflug
Edited by
Ute Schönpflug
Ute Schönpflug
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Transmission may be understood as the deliberate or unintended transfer of information from a transmitter to a transmittee. The concept of cultural transmission, however, indicates the transmission of culture or cultural elements that are widely distributed: social orientations (e.g., values), skills (e.g., reading and writing), knowledge (e.g., the healing power of certain herbs), and behaviors (e.g., the exchange of rings in a wedding ceremony). The scope of this distribution defines the boundaries of the respective culture. The research traditions presented herein reveal that theorists have generally thought of cultural transmission as a process of replication of whatever is transmitted in another individual or in other groups. However, as pointed out by Reynolds (1981) (see also Henrich & Boyd, 2002), the replication has its limits. This debate is elaborated on throughout this chapter.

The transmission of culture is a necessary process to maintain culture; thus, it has always taken place, from ancient to newly developed cultures. In traditional, slowly changing societies, the transmission of culture is a common undertaking of the older generation applied to the younger generation. The mechanisms involved in the cultural transmission of either slowly or rapidly changing societies form the basis of various theories that have been developed in the history of transmission research.

The history of cultural transmission theories and research is characterized by interdisciplinary contributions. This chapter traces the origins and ramifications of theoretical approaches and looks at empirical evidence and counter-evidence.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cultural Transmission
Psychological, Developmental, Social, and Methodological Aspects
 , pp. 9 - 30
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agar, W. E., & Kerr, G. (1913). The transmission of environmental effects from parent to offspring in simocephalus vetulus. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 203, 319–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. New York: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Barret, J. L., & Nyhof, M. A. (2001). Spreading nonnatural concepts: The role of intuitive conceptual structures in memory and transmission of cultural materials. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 1, 69–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, V. L., & Troll, L. (1978). Youth and their parents: Feedback and intergenerational influence in socialization. In Lerner, M. R. & Spanier, G. B. (Eds.), Child influences on marital and family interaction: A life span development (pp. 215–240). New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borke, H. (1967). A family over three generations: The transmission of interacting and relating patterns. Journal of Marriage and Family, 29, 638–655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1996). Why culture is common, but cultural evolution is rare. Proceedings of the British Academy, 88, 77–93.Google Scholar
Branford, V. (1913). St. Columba: A study of social inheritance and spiritual development. Edinburgh: Geddes & Co.Google Scholar
Bullock, D. (1987). Socializing the theory of intelligence. In Chapman, M. & Dixon, R. (Eds.), Meaning and the growth of mind: Wittgenstein's significance for developmental psychology (pp. 187–218). New York: Springer Verlag.Google Scholar
Caspi, A., & Elder, G. H. (1988). Emergent family patterns: The intergenerational construction of problem behavior and relationships. In Hinde, R. A. & Stevenson-Hinde, J. (Eds.), Relationship within families: Mutual influences (pp. 218–240). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., & Feldman, M. W. (1981). Cultural transmission and evolution: A quantitative approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., Feldman, M. W., Chen, K. H., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1982). Theory and observation in cultural transmission. Science, 218, 19–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clapp, H. L. (1894). The inadequacy of the transmission of learning. Education, 15, 1–9.Google Scholar
Cole, M., Gay, J., Glick, J., & Sharp, D. (1971). The cultural context of learning and thinking. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Curie, J. (2002). Mother's education and the intergenerational transmission of human capital: Evidence from college openings and longitudinal data. Working Paper 9360 of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Lamarck, J. (1809). Zoologische Philosophie (Philosophie zoologique). Leipzig: Körner.Google Scholar
Diekmann, A., & Jann, B. (Eds.) (2004). Modelle sozialer Evolution [Models of social evolution]. Wiesbaden: DTV.CrossRef
Dunham, C. C., & Bengtson, V. L. (1986). Conceptual and theoretical perspectives on generational relations. In Datan, N., Green, A. L., & Reese, H. W. (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology: Intergenerational relations (pp. 1–28). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Durham, W. H. (1990). Advances in evolutionary culture theory. Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 187–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elder, G. H., Downey, G., & Cross, C. E. (1986). Family ties and life changes: Hard times and hard choices in women's lives since the 1930s. In Datan, N., Greene, A. L., & Reese, H. W. (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology: Intergenerational relations (pp. 151–183). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
English, H. B. (1919). A note on social inheritance. Psychological Bulletin, 16, 393–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, N. A. (1995). On the way we were: Adult memories about attachment experiences and their role in determining parent–infant relationships: A commentary on van Ijzendoorn (1995). Psychological Bulletin, 117, 404–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Hartog, M. (1893). The Spencer–Weismann controversy. Contemporary Review, 64, 50–59.Google Scholar
Hartog, M. (1908). The transmission of acquired characters. Contemporary Review, 94, 307–317.Google Scholar
Helfman, G. S., & Schultz, E. T. (1984). Social transmission of behavioral traditions in a coral reef fish. Animal Behaviour, 32, 379–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J. (2001). Cultural transmission and the diffusion of innovations: Adoption dynamics indicate that biased cultural transmission is the predominant force in behavioral change. American Anthropology, 103, 992–1013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., & Boyd, R. (1998). The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence of between-group differences. Evolution and Human Behavior, 19, 215–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., & Boyd, R. (2002). On modeling cognition and culture: Why cultural evolution does not require replication of representation. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2.2, 87–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hewlett, B. S., & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (1986). Cultural transmission among Aka pygmies. American Anthropologist, 88, 922–934.Google Scholar
Jacobs, R. C., & Campbell, D. T. (1961). The perpetuation of an arbitrary tradition through successive generations of a laboratory microculture. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62, 649–658.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamela, T., & Nakanishi, D. (2002). Cost-benefit analysis of social/cultural learning. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 373–393.Google Scholar
Kerr, G. (1913). Transmission of environmental effects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 203, 319–350.Google Scholar
Kohn, M. L. (1959). Social class and parent–child relationship. American Journal of Sociology, 64, 337–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohn, M. L. (1983). On the transmission of values in the family: A preliminary formulation. Research in the Sociology of Education and Socialization, 4, 3–12.Google Scholar
Kohn, M. L., Slomczynski, K. M., & Schoenbach, C. (1986). Social stratification and the transmission of values in the family: A cross-national assessment. Sociological Forum, 1, 73–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuczynski, L., Marshall, S., & Schell, K. (1997). Value socialization in a bidirectional context. In Grusec, J. E. & Kuczynski, L. (Eds.), Parenting and children's internalization of values: A handbook of contemporary theory (pp. 23–50). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Landy, D. (1959). Tropical childhood: Cultural transmission and learning in a rural Puerto Rican village. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Lumsden, C. J. (1984). Parent–offspring conflict over the transmission of culture. Ethology and Sociobiology, 5, 111–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lumsden, C. J., & Wilson, E. O. (1981). Genes, Mind and Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mark, N. P. (2002). Cultural transmission, disproportionate prior exposure, and the evolution of cooperation. American Sociological Review, 67, 323–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, M. (1928). Coming of age in Samoa. New York: W. Morrow.Google Scholar
Mead, M. (1930). Growing up in New Guinea. New York: Blue Ribbon Books.Google Scholar
Mead, M. (1940). Social change and cultural surrogates. Journal of Educational Sociology, 14, 92–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norenzayan, A., & Atran, S. (2004). Cognitive and emotional processes in the cultural transmission of natural and nonnatural beliefs. In Schaller, M. & Crandall, C. S. (Eds.), Psychological foundations of culture (pp. 149–169). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Parcel, T. L., & Menaghan, E. G. (1994). Parents' jobs and children's lives. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Parker, S. (1985). A social-technological model for the evolution of language. Current Anthropology, 26, 617–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putallaz, M., Constanzo, P. R., Grimes, C. L., & Sherman, D. M. (1998). Intergenerational continuities and their influences on children's social development. Social Development, 7, 389–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rettig, S. (1966). Relation of social systems to intergenerational changes in moral attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 409–414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reynolds, P. C. (1981). On the evolution of behavior: The argument from animals to man. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, E. M. (1962/1995). Diffusion of innovations. First and fourth editions. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, B. C. (1964). Family structure and value transmission. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 10, 59–76.Google Scholar
Ruddle, K., & Chesterfield, R. (1977). Education for traditional food procurement in the Orinoco Delta. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Schönpflug, U. (2001). Intergenerational transmission of values: The role of transmission belts. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 174–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherif, M. (1967). Social interaction: Process or product. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Sherry, D. F., & Galef, B. G. (1984). Cultural transmission without imitation: Milk-bottle opening by birds. Animal Behaviour, 32, 937–938.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, H. (1893a). The inadequacy of natural selection. I. Contemporary Review, 63, 153–166.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. (1893b). The inadequacy of natural selection. II. Contemporary Review, 63, 439–456.Google Scholar
Tallman, I., Gray, L. N., Kullberg, V., & Henderson, D. (1999). The intergenerational transmission of marital conflict: Testing a model. Social Psychology Quarterly, 62, 219–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taris, R. W., Semin, G. R., & Bok, I. A. (1998). The effect of quality of family interaction and intergenerational transmission of values on sexual permissiveness. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 159, 237–250.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thorndike, E. L. (1903). The inheritance of mental traits. In Thorndike, E. L. (Ed.), Educational Psychology (pp. 47–65). New York: Lemcke & Buechner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1990). Cultural transmission in the tool use and communicatory signaling of chimpanzees? In Parker, S. T. & Gibson, K. R. (Eds.), “Language” and intelligence in monkeys and apes: Comparative developmental perspectives (pp. 274–311). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., Davis-Dasilva, M., Camak, L., & Evans, E. (1987). Observational learning of tool use by young chimpanzees. Human Evolution, 2, 175–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., Krüger, A. C., & Ratner, H. H. (1993). Cultural learning. Behavior and Brain Sciences, 16, 495–552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parent–offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ustinova, M. Y. (1988). Intergenerational transmission of ethnocultural traditions: The example of the peoples of the Soviet Baltic Republics. Moscow: NAUKA Central Department of Oriental Literature.Google Scholar
Ijzendoorn, M. H. (1992). Intergenerational transmission of parenting: A review of studies in nonclinical populations. Developmental Review, 12, 76–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ijzendoorn, M. H. (1995). On the way we are: On temperament, attachment, and the transmission gap: A rejoinder to Fox (1995). Psychological Bulletin, 117, 411–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vermulst, A. A., Brock, A. J. L. L., & Zutphen, R. A. H. (1991). The transmission of parenting across generations. In Smith, P. K. (Ed.), The psychology of grandparenthood: An international perspective (pp. 100–122). London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
White, D. J., Gros-Louis, J., King, A. P., Papakhian, M. A., & West, M. J. (2007). Constructing culture in cowbirds. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 121, 113–122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zucker, L. G. (1977). The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence. American Sociological Review, 42, 726–743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×