“Culture is not
causeless and disembodied. It is
generated in rich and intricate ways by information-processing mechanisms
situated in human minds. These
mechanisms are, in turn, the elaborately sculpted product of the evolutionary
process. Therefore, to understand
the relationship between biology and culture one must first understand the
architecture of our evolved psychology.”
The Adapted Mind –
Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby
The
Bioevolutionary Underpinnings of Culture
The best place to
begin a discussion of the connection between culture and behavior is with the
most recent research and theoretical trends we have in the social and behavioral
sciences. The study of unique
cultures led me first to cross-cultural psychology, which is the formal study of
how culture influences thought, emotion and behavior. But this wasn’t enough to satisfy my
curiosity. From there I developed a
desire to go beyond the culturally unique and find the culturally common, or the
universal human nature that underlies all human cultures. This in turn made me to want to know how
the culture common or universal got there to begin with, which led me to the
study of evolutionary psychology and evolutionarily informed neuroscience and
allowed me to know how and why the universal human psychological architecture
evolved and how it actually works within the brain and body to create thought,
emotion, behavior and ultimately culture.
I also wanted to understand the biological basis of the various
human intelligences which are universal and which we all have by virtue of our
species membership. And lastly, I
wanted to know how different cultures define intelligence and encourage the
development of particularly valued intelligences among a group of people.
These four
very exciting fields of cross-cultural psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary
psychology and the study of the biological basis of human intelligence are on
the cutting edge of the study of human thought, emotion and behavior. The social and behavioral sciences are
going through a welcome transformation whereby they are becoming more
conceptually, theoretically and empirically integrated with the physical and
natural sciences which is bringing into focus the biological basis for human
behavior. Cross-cultural psychology
is allowing us to understand the influence of culture on the human mind. Neuroscience is giving us the small
picture of how the brain and nervous system works by means of electrochemical
processes and neural circuits that allow consciousness, perception, cognition,
emotion and behavior.
Evolutionary psychology is giving us the big picture by showing us how
and why our hominid ancestors evolved these neural and cognitive capabilities in
their ancestral environments and how our ancient predispositions help shape
universal human culture.
Evolutionary psychology is also, along with neuroscience, looking at the
type and functions of neural circuits that guide and predispose us to thing,
feel and behave in certain ways.
And the study of human intelligence is allowing us to better understand
the biological basis of intelligence as well as the sociocultural aspects of
intelligence.
The American
philosopher and pioneer psychologist William James stated one hundred years ago
that humans have more instincts than animals, not less. Indeed, we humans have an
abundance of instincts in the form of neural circuits. This does not mean that we are simply
unthinking animals acting out the dictates of the brain, that we have no free
will. On the contrary, the fact
that humans are remarkably adaptable and have developed an equally remarkable
number of rich and diverse cultures throughout our history is proof of our
“flex-ability.” The great number
and content of our neural circuits, as well as the plasticity of the brain, is
what allows us such flexibility and adaptability.
Human universal and
species-typical patterns of thought, emotion and behavior are testimony to our
evolved common biological heritage.
Humans have species-typical needs in the areas of survival and
reproduction such as the need for institutions like the family and the status
hierarchies that become systems of social, economic and political order. Humans are designed to both compete and
cooperate, to seek mates for sexual reproduction, and to rear children in
certain ways. These and others are
the universal and innate predispositions which become manifest in various forms
in all human societies and they have recently been referred to as Metaculture by
Tooby, Cosmides and Barkow in their groundbreaking book entitled The Adapted
Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture.
But because we live
within different physical and social environments we have developed and continue
to develop an immense variety of different ways to address our species-universal
needs. These different ways that we
address our universal human needs within different environments is called
culture. Our evolved common
biological heritage has given us predispositions for various patterns of
perception, thought, emotion and behavior (universal human nature) which when
expressed in different environments produces different cultures. The discussions that follow are about
trying to understand, to live and work with people from cultures that are
different from our own, and to become successful teachers within these different
cultures.
There is a
considerable body of scientific evidence in support of the fact that all humans,
by virtue of the human genome, possess a species-typical neuropsychological
architecture consisting of hardwired predispositions for certain patterns of
thought, emotion and behavior which add up to a universal human nature. These predispositions operate through
neural circuits in the brain and nervous system, through hormones in the
bloodstream, and indeed throughout the entire physiology of the organism. Within this neuropsychological and
physiological framework humans have immense latitude of thought, emotion and
behavior that adds up to what we call free will. We even have the free will and ability
to go completely against these natural predispositions if we so choose, but the
framework of predispositions is nonetheless there within each and every one of
us.
This universal human
nature, or metaculture, provides the
basic framework within which specific cultures are free to develop in their own
unique ways in response to unique aspects of their physical and social
environments. But this does not
necessarily always imply a strict causal determinism whereby the physical or
social environment dictate cultural content, although this is no doubt sometimes
the case. Layers of culture form
upon and out of previous layers of culture over historical time and there are
cumulative effects which allow for rich and varied cultural phenomenon which may
seem to have no apparent adaptive functions – culture can take on a life of its
own.
In cultural studies we so often emphasize the uniqueness of a people’s culture and the ways in which it is so exotically different from our own that we fail to see and appreciate the underlying common structure of human nature. This universality is apparent everywhere, and in social sciences such as cultural anthropology or sociology all you have to do is look at any introductory textbook and find chapters based upon what are species-typical institutions such as marriage, family, childrearing practices, politics, economics, religion, collective behavior, deviancy and social control.