Alex Mesoudi
Biographic Data
| ID | 92212 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Mesoudi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Mesoudi |
| SIGNATURE | MESOUDI A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7740-1625 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 262 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Testing Evolutionary Theories of Human Cooperation via Meta-Analysis of Microfinance Repayment
Explaining how cooperation evolves is a major research programme in the biological and social sciences. In this study we tested evolutionary theories of human cooperation in a real-world social dilemma: joint liability microfinance, in which groups of borrowers must cooperate to successfully repay a shared loan. We used pre-registered Bayesian multilevel models to estimate meta-analytic associations between loan repayment and proxies of four evol…
Testing the effect of circumscription on the evolution of social complexity in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, using agent-based models
A formal test using agent-based models of the circumscription theory for the evolution of social complexity
The emergence of social complexity in human societies is a long-debated topic in archaeology, with competing hypotheses proposed and argued for using archaeological evidence. However, formal testing of these hypotheses is generally lacking. Here, we present and analyse an agent-based model to test the effect of environmental, resource, and social barriers to population movement – collectively known as ‘circumscription’ – on the rate of hierarchy …
Understanding Cultural Transmission in Anthropology: A Critical Synthesis
The concept of "cultural transmission" is central to much contemporary anthropological theory, since successful human reproduction through social systems is essential for effective survival and for enhancing the adaptiveness of individual humans and local populations. Yet, what is understood by the phrase and how it might best be studied is highly contested. This book brings together contributions that reflect the current diversity of approaches …
Individual-Based Models of Cultural Evolution: A Step-by-Step Guide Using R
Individual-Based Models of Cultural Evolution shows readers how to create individual-based models of cultural evolution using the programming language R. The field of cultural evolution has emerged in the last few decades as a thriving, interdisciplinary effort to understand cultural change and cultural diversity within an evolutionary framework and using evolutionary tools, concepts, and methods. Given its roots in evolutionary biology, much of …
When do people prefer dominant over prestigious political leaders
Prestige Does Not Affect the Cultural Transmission of Novel Controversial Arguments in an Online Transmission Chain Experiment
Cultural evolutionary theories define prestige as social rank that is freely conferred on individuals possessing superior knowledge or skill, in order to gain opportunities to learn from such individuals. Consequently, information provided by prestigious individuals should be more memorable, and hence more likely to be culturally transmitted, than information from non-prestigious sources, particularly for novel, controversial arguments about whic…
Banking on cooperation: An Evolutionary Analysis of Microfinance Loan Repayment Behaviour
Cultural evolution of football tactics: Strategic Social Learning in Managers’ Choice of Formation
Prestige-biased social learning: Current evidence and outstanding questions
Cultural evolution theory posits that a major factor in human ecological success is our high-fidelity and selective social learning, which permits the accumulation of adaptive knowledge and skills over successive generations. One way to acquire adaptive social information is by preferentially copying competent individuals within a valuable domain ( success bias ). However, competence within a domain is often difficult or impossible to directly as…
Understanding Agriculture within the Frameworks of Cumulative Cultural Evolution, Gene-Culture Co-Evolution, and Cultural Niche Construction
Cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics
Causal understanding is not necessary for the improvement of culturally evolving technology
Cultural evolution: Subsistence and social learning
Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies
Differences in Manufacturing Traditions and Assemblage-Level Patterns: The Origins of Cultural Differences in Archaeological Data
Copying error, evolution, and phylogenetic signal in artifactual traditions: An experimental approach using “model artifacts”
Multilevel processes and cultural adaptation: Examples From Past and Present Small-Scale Societies
Cultural adaptation has become central in the context of accelerated global change with authors increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding multilevel processes that operate as adaptation takes place. We explore the importance of multilevel processes in explaining cultural adaptation by describing how processes leading to cultural (mis)adaptation are linked through a complex nested hierarchy, where the lower levels combine into new…
The impact of imitative versus emulative learning mechanisms on artifactual variation: Implications for the evolution of material culture
Cultural Evolution: Overview
Introduction to “Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution During the Palaeolithic”
Learning in the Acheulean: Experimental Insights Using Handaxe Form as a ‘Model Organism’
Transmission of Cultural Variants in the North American Paleolithic
Factors affecting Acheulean handaxe variation: Experimental insights, microevolutionary processes, and macroevolutionary outcomes
Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution during the Palaeolithic
Factors affecting Acheulean handaxe variation: Experimental insights, microevolutionary processes, and macroevolutionary outcomes
Copying Error and the Cultural Evolution of “Additive” vs. “Reductive” Material Traditions: An Experimental Assessment
Copying errors that occur during the manufacture of artifactual traditions are potentially a major source of variation. It has been proposed that material items produced via “additive” processes (e.g., pottery) will possess less variation than traditions produced via “reductive” processes (e.g., stone knapping). The logic of this premise is that “additive” production methods more readily allow for the reversal of copying errors compared to strict…
The Cultural Transmission of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology I: An Experimental Simulation
A Darwinian evolutionary approach to archaeology naturally leads to a focus on cultural transmission. Theoretical models of cultural evolution indicate that individual-level details of cultural transmission can have specific and significant population-level effects, implying that differences in transmission may be detectable in the archaeological record. Here we present an experimental simulation of the cultural transmission of prehistoric projec…
A bias for social information in human cultural transmission
Evolutionary theories concerning the origins of human intelligence suggest that cultural transmission might be biased toward social over non-social information. This was tested by passing social and non-social information along multiple chains of participants. Experiment 1 found that gossip, defined as information about intense third-party social relationships, was transmitted with siginificantly greater accuracy and in significantly greater quan…
Copying error, evolution, and phylogenetic signal in artifactual traditions: An experimental approach using “model artifacts”
Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution during the Palaeolithic
Causal understanding is not necessary for the improvement of culturally evolving technology
Differences in Manufacturing Traditions and Assemblage-Level Patterns: The Origins of Cultural Differences in Archaeological Data
The Hierarchical Transformation of Event Knowledge in Human Cultural Transmission
There is extensive evidence that adults, children, and some non-human species, represent routine events in the form of hierarchically structured 'action scripts,' and show superior recall and imitation of information at relatively high-levels of this hierarchy. Here we investigate the hypothesis that a 'hierarchical bias' operates in human cultural transmission, acting to impose a hierarchical structure onto descriptions of everyday events, and t…
Cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics
The Cultural Transmission of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology II: An Agent-Based Computer Simulation
We present an agent-based computer simulation that extends a previous experimental simulation (Mesoudi and O'Brien 2008) of the cultural transmission of projectile-point technology in the prehistoric Great Basin, with participants replaced with computer-generated agents. As in the experiment, individual learning is found to generate low correlations between artifact attributes, whereas indirectly biased cultural transmission (copying the point de…
Cultural evolution of football tactics: Strategic Social Learning in Managers’ Choice of Formation
Why aren't the social sciences Darwinian: Introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology
At the inception of the social sciences in the late 19th century, early psychologists, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists frequently proposed evolutionary explanations for social phenomena. Yet by the mid-20th century Darwin's theory had virtually disappeared from the social sciences, and most social scientists continue to reject evolutionary approaches within their disciplines. This special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Psyc…
Science, Evolution and Cultural Anthropology a Response to Ingold (This Issue)
Multilevel processes and cultural adaptation: Examples From Past and Present Small-Scale Societies
Cultural adaptation has become central in the context of accelerated global change with authors increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding multilevel processes that operate as adaptation takes place. We explore the importance of multilevel processes in explaining cultural adaptation by describing how processes leading to cultural (mis)adaptation are linked through a complex nested hierarchy, where the lower levels combine into new…
Introduction; Integrating Genetic and Cultural Evolutionary Approaches to Language
The papers in this special issue of Human Biology address recent research in the field of language evolution, both the genetic evolution of the language faculty and the cultural evolution of specific languages. While both of these areas have received increasing interest in recent years, there is also a need to integrate these somewhat separate efforts and explore the relevant gene-culture coevolutionary interactions. Here we summarize the individ…
Prestige Does Not Affect the Cultural Transmission of Novel Controversial Arguments in an Online Transmission Chain Experiment
Cultural evolutionary theories define prestige as social rank that is freely conferred on individuals possessing superior knowledge or skill, in order to gain opportunities to learn from such individuals. Consequently, information provided by prestigious individuals should be more memorable, and hence more likely to be culturally transmitted, than information from non-prestigious sources, particularly for novel, controversial arguments about whic…
Culture and the Darwinian Renaissance in the social sciences and humanities: For a special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology , “The Darwinian Renaissance in the Social Sciences and Human…
A “Darwinian Renaissance” in the social sciences and humanities cannot occur until evolutionary theory can successfully explain rapid and cumulative cultural change. Here I review empirical evidence that much of human behaviour is culturally determined, emphasising the need to incorporate culture into evolutionary analyses of human behaviour. I also review theoretical work which shows that culture is genetically adaptive, belying any simplistic g…
Perspective: Is Human Cultural Evolution Darwinian? Evidence Reviewed From the Perspective of the Origin of Species
The claim that human culture evolves through the differential adoption of cultural variants, in a manner analogous to the evolution of biological species, has been greeted with much resistance and confusion. Here we demonstrate that as compelling a case can now be made that cultural evolution has key Darwinian properties, as Darwin himself presented for biological evolution in The Origin of Species. Culture is shown to exhibit variation, competit…
The Hierarchical Transformation of Event Knowledge in Human Cultural Transmission
There is extensive evidence that adults, children, and some non-human species, represent routine events in the form of hierarchically structured 'action scripts,' and show superior recall and imitation of information at relatively high-levels of this hierarchy. Here we investigate the hypothesis that a 'hierarchical bias' operates in human cultural transmission, acting to impose a hierarchical structure onto descriptions of everyday events, and t…
Towards a unified science of cultural evolution
We suggest that human culture exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary properties, and argue that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should share fundamental features with the structure of the science of biological evolution. This latter claim is tested by outlining the methods and approaches employed by the principal subdisciplines of evolutionary biology and assessing whether there is an existing or potential corresponding approach to …
A bias for social information in human cultural transmission
Evolutionary theories concerning the origins of human intelligence suggest that cultural transmission might be biased toward social over non-social information. This was tested by passing social and non-social information along multiple chains of participants. Experiment 1 found that gossip, defined as information about intense third-party social relationships, was transmitted with siginificantly greater accuracy and in significantly greater quan…
Science, Evolution and Cultural Anthropology a Response to Ingold (This Issue)
An experimental simulation of the “copy-successful-individuals” cultural learning strategy: Adaptive landscapes, producer–scrounger dynamics, and informational access costs
The multiple roles of cultural transmission experiments in understanding human cultural evolution
In this paper, we explore how experimental studies of cultural transmission in adult humans can address general questions regarding the ‘who, what, when and how’ of human cultural transmission, and consequently inform a theory of human cultural evolution. Three methods are discussed. The transmission chain method, in which information is passed along linear chains of participants, has been used to identify content biases in cultural transmission.…
Nerd and Norms: Framework and Experiments
We advocate and share the same theoretical framework for empirical research in ethics as exemplified in Christina Bicchieri's The Grammar of Society . Our research differs from Bicchieri's in our approach to experimentation: where she relies on lab experiments, we have constructed an experimental platform based on an internet survey instrument; where she relies on rational reconstructions, we do not. In this paper we focus on four contrasts in ou…
The Cultural Transmission of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology II: An Agent-Based Computer Simulation
We present an agent-based computer simulation that extends a previous experimental simulation (Mesoudi and O'Brien 2008) of the cultural transmission of projectile-point technology in the prehistoric Great Basin, with participants replaced with computer-generated agents. As in the experiment, individual learning is found to generate low correlations between artifact attributes, whereas indirectly biased cultural transmission (copying the point de…
The Cultural Transmission of Great Basin Projectile-Point Technology I: An Experimental Simulation
A Darwinian evolutionary approach to archaeology naturally leads to a focus on cultural transmission. Theoretical models of cultural evolution indicate that individual-level details of cultural transmission can have specific and significant population-level effects, implying that differences in transmission may be detectable in the archaeological record. Here we present an experimental simulation of the cultural transmission of prehistoric projec…
Random copying, frequency-dependent copying and culture change
Why aren't the social sciences Darwinian: Introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology
At the inception of the social sciences in the late 19th century, early psychologists, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists frequently proposed evolutionary explanations for social phenomena. Yet by the mid-20th century Darwin's theory had virtually disappeared from the social sciences, and most social scientists continue to reject evolutionary approaches within their disciplines. This special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Psyc…
An experimental comparison of human social learning strategies: Payoff-biased social learning is adaptive but underused
Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences
Culture and the Darwinian Renaissance in the social sciences and humanities: For a special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology , “The Darwinian Renaissance in the Social Sciences and Human…
A “Darwinian Renaissance” in the social sciences and humanities cannot occur until evolutionary theory can successfully explain rapid and cumulative cultural change. Here I review empirical evidence that much of human behaviour is culturally determined, emphasising the need to incorporate culture into evolutionary analyses of human behaviour. I also review theoretical work which shows that culture is genetically adaptive, belying any simplistic g…
Introduction; Integrating Genetic and Cultural Evolutionary Approaches to Language
The papers in this special issue of Human Biology address recent research in the field of language evolution, both the genetic evolution of the language faculty and the cultural evolution of specific languages. While both of these areas have received increasing interest in recent years, there is also a need to integrate these somewhat separate efforts and explore the relevant gene-culture coevolutionary interactions. Here we summarize the individ…
Introduction: Integrating Genetic and Cultural Evolutionary Approaches to Language
The papers in this special issue of Human Biology address recent research in the field of language evolution, both the genetic evolution of the language faculty and the cultural evolution of specific languages. While both of these areas have received increasing interest in recent years, there is also a need to integrate these somewhat separate efforts and explore the relevant gene-culture coevolutionary interactions. Here we summarize the individ…
Darwinian Sociocultural Evolution: Solutions to Dilemmas in Cultural and Social Theory. Marion Blute
Statistical Analyses Cannot be Divorced from Archaeological Theory: A Reply to Potter
Potter criticizes our experimental study of the roles played by indirect bias and guided variation in shaping prehistoric Great Basin projectile point variation. His criticisms are technically correct from the standpoint of statistical convention, but he fails to understand the theoretical rationale of our study. Without such an understanding, his assertion that our conclusions are questionable is incorrect. Here we point out again (1) how our ex…
An experimental demonstration of the effect of group size on cultural accumulation
Copying Error and the Cultural Evolution of “Additive” vs. “Reductive” Material Traditions: An Experimental Assessment
Copying errors that occur during the manufacture of artifactual traditions are potentially a major source of variation. It has been proposed that material items produced via “additive” processes (e.g., pottery) will possess less variation than traditions produced via “reductive” processes (e.g., stone knapping). The logic of this premise is that “additive” production methods more readily allow for the reversal of copying errors compared to strict…
The impact of imitative versus emulative learning mechanisms on artifactual variation: Implications for the evolution of material culture
Cultural Evolution: Overview
Introduction to “Learning Strategies and Cultural Evolution During the Palaeolithic”
Learning in the Acheulean: Experimental Insights Using Handaxe Form as a ‘Model Organism’
Language and cultural evolution (32 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (27 works) · Computer Science (26 works) · Biology (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Psychology (19 works) · Evolutionary biology (17 works) · Anthropology (15 works) · Sociocultural evolution (13 works) · Cultural transmission in animals (12 works)