EITM: Cultural Evolution and Human Behavior: Linking Theory and Empirical Research

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

This Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) project will examine two experiments designed to test models of social learning, which are the foundations of cultural evolution. These will examine conformity in five person groups with changing environmental parameters over time. The project will create a computer laboratory with local area networks to demonstrate how experiments can be used to test the theoretical underpinnings of models of cultural evolution. Subjects will be organized into five-person groups run simultaneously in the computer laboratory. Each subject will have to choose between two behavioral options, providing different payoffs, to be paid in real dollars at the end of the experiment. The broader impacts of this work pertain to the fact that rapid social, economic, political and technological changes are occurring in the majority of society in the world, and increases in our basic knowledge of these processes will be valuable to decision makers as well as to the educated person concerned to understand contemporary life.