The pace of modern culture

Ben Lambert, Georgios Kontonatsios, Matthias Mauch, Theodore Kokkoris, Matthew Jockers, Sophia Ananiadou and Armand M. Leroi ()
Additional contact information
Ben Lambert: Imperial College London
Georgios Kontonatsios: University of Manchester
Matthias Mauch: Queen Mary University of London
Theodore Kokkoris: Imperial College London
Matthew Jockers: Washington State University
Sophia Ananiadou: University of Manchester
Armand M. Leroi: Imperial College London

Nature Human Behaviour, 2020, vol. 4, issue 4, 352-360

Abstract: Abstract Here we investigate the evolutionary dynamics of several kinds of modern cultural artefacts—pop music, novels, the clinical literature and cars—as well as a collection of organic populations. In contrast to the general belief that modern culture evolves very quickly, we show that rates of modern cultural evolution are comparable to those of many animal populations. Using time-series methods, we show that much of modern culture is shaped by either stabilizing or directional forces or both and that these forces partly regulate the rates at which different traits evolve. We suggest that these forces are probably cultural selection and that the evolution of many artefact traits can be explained by a shifting-optimum model of cultural selection that, in turn, rests on known psychological biases in aesthetic appreciation. In sum, our results demonstrate the deep unity of the processes and patterns of cultural and organic evolution.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0802-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:4:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1038_s41562-019-0802-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0802-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().