Michelle A Kline
Biographic Data
| ID | 92446 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michelle A Kline |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michelle A |
| FAMILY NAME | Kline |
| SIGNATURE | KLINE M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Simon Fraser University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1998-6928 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 80 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Construct validity in cross-cultural, developmental research: Challenges and Strategies for Improvement
The recent expansion of cross-cultural research in the social sciences has led to increased discourse on methodological issues involved when studying culturally diverse populations. However, discussions have largely overlooked the challenges of construct validity – ensuring instruments are measuring what they are intended to – in diverse cultural contexts, particularly in developmental research. We contend that cross-cultural developmental resear…
A roadmap to doing culturally grounded developmental science
This paper provides a roadmap for engaging in cross-cultural, developmental research in practical, ethical, and community-engaged ways. To cultivate the flexibility necessary for conducting cross-cultural research, we structure our roadmap as a series of questions that each research program might consider prior to embarking on cross-cultural examinations in developmental science. Within each topic, we focus on the challenges and opportunities inh…
Effective climate change adaptation means supporting community autonomy
Opportunities for Interaction: Natural Observations of Children’s Social Behavior in Five Societies
The Life History of Learning Subsistence Skills among Hadza and BaYaka Foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo
Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural …
BaYaka Adolescent Boys Nominate Accessible Adult Men as Preferred Spear Hunting Models
Humans are selective social learners. In a cultural landscape with many potential models, learners must balance the cost associated with learning from successful models with learning from accessible ones. Using structured interviews, we investigate the model selection biases of Congolese BaYaka adolescent boys learning to hunt with spears (n = 24; mean age [mage] = 15.79 years; range, 12-20 years). Results from social relations models suggest tha…
Dynamics of behavior change in the Covid world
All of the policies adopted or proposed so far to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus require immediate and extensive behavioral change. However, changing behavior is difficult even when the benefits are borne by solid science. Doing so effectively requires an appreciation for how people learn behaviors and translate information into action. Evidence-based policies for altering health behaviors are not new. For example, a decade-old systemat…
Patterns of paternal investment predict cross-cultural variation in jealous response
Designing cultural multilevel selection research for sustainability science
Humans stand out among animals in that we cooperate in large groups to exploit natural resources, and accumulate resource exploitation techniques across generations via cultural learning. This uniquely human form of adaptability is in large part to blame for the global sustainability crisis. This paper builds on cultural evolutionary theory to conceptualize and study environmental resource use and overexploitation. Human social learning and coope…
Teach: An Ethogram-based Method to Observe and Record Teaching Behavior
Teaching has attracted growing research attention in studies of human and animal behavior as a crucial behavior that coevolved with human cultural capacities. However, the synthesis of data on teaching across species and across human populations has proven elusive because researchers use a variety of definitions and methods to approach the topic. I propose a novel method for the study of teaching behavior to be used across disciplines and populat…
How to learn about teaching: An evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals
The human species is more reliant on cultural adaptation than any other species, but it is unclear how observational learning can give rise to the faithful transmission of cultural adaptations. One possibility is that teaching facilitates accurate social transmission by narrowing the range of inferences that learners make. However, there is wide disagreement about how to define teaching, and how to interpret the empirical evidence for teaching ac…
A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis
Waring, T. M., M. A. Kline, J. S. Brooks, S. H. Goff, J. Gowdy, M. A. Janssen, P. E. Smaldino, and J. Jacquet. 2015. A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis. Ecology and Society 20(2): 34. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07634-200234
Convergence of speech rate in conversation predicts cooperation
Teaching and the Life History of Cultural Transmission in Fijian Villages
Teaching and the Life History of Cultural Transmission in Fijian Villages
The Life History of Learning Subsistence Skills among Hadza and BaYaka Foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo
Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural …
A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis
Waring, T. M., M. A. Kline, J. S. Brooks, S. H. Goff, J. Gowdy, M. A. Janssen, P. E. Smaldino, and J. Jacquet. 2015. A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis. Ecology and Society 20(2): 34. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07634-200234
BaYaka Adolescent Boys Nominate Accessible Adult Men as Preferred Spear Hunting Models
Humans are selective social learners. In a cultural landscape with many potential models, learners must balance the cost associated with learning from successful models with learning from accessible ones. Using structured interviews, we investigate the model selection biases of Congolese BaYaka adolescent boys learning to hunt with spears (n = 24; mean age [mage] = 15.79 years; range, 12-20 years). Results from social relations models suggest tha…
Patterns of paternal investment predict cross-cultural variation in jealous response
Teach: An Ethogram-based Method to Observe and Record Teaching Behavior
Teaching has attracted growing research attention in studies of human and animal behavior as a crucial behavior that coevolved with human cultural capacities. However, the synthesis of data on teaching across species and across human populations has proven elusive because researchers use a variety of definitions and methods to approach the topic. I propose a novel method for the study of teaching behavior to be used across disciplines and populat…
Designing cultural multilevel selection research for sustainability science
Humans stand out among animals in that we cooperate in large groups to exploit natural resources, and accumulate resource exploitation techniques across generations via cultural learning. This uniquely human form of adaptability is in large part to blame for the global sustainability crisis. This paper builds on cultural evolutionary theory to conceptualize and study environmental resource use and overexploitation. Human social learning and coope…
Opportunities for Interaction: Natural Observations of Children’s Social Behavior in Five Societies
Construct validity in cross-cultural, developmental research: Challenges and Strategies for Improvement
The recent expansion of cross-cultural research in the social sciences has led to increased discourse on methodological issues involved when studying culturally diverse populations. However, discussions have largely overlooked the challenges of construct validity – ensuring instruments are measuring what they are intended to – in diverse cultural contexts, particularly in developmental research. We contend that cross-cultural developmental resear…
Convergence of speech rate in conversation predicts cooperation
Teaching and the Life History of Cultural Transmission in Fijian Villages
How to learn about teaching: An evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals
The human species is more reliant on cultural adaptation than any other species, but it is unclear how observational learning can give rise to the faithful transmission of cultural adaptations. One possibility is that teaching facilitates accurate social transmission by narrowing the range of inferences that learners make. However, there is wide disagreement about how to define teaching, and how to interpret the empirical evidence for teaching ac…
A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis
Waring, T. M., M. A. Kline, J. S. Brooks, S. H. Goff, J. Gowdy, M. A. Janssen, P. E. Smaldino, and J. Jacquet. 2015. A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis. Ecology and Society 20(2): 34. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07634-200234
Designing cultural multilevel selection research for sustainability science
Humans stand out among animals in that we cooperate in large groups to exploit natural resources, and accumulate resource exploitation techniques across generations via cultural learning. This uniquely human form of adaptability is in large part to blame for the global sustainability crisis. This paper builds on cultural evolutionary theory to conceptualize and study environmental resource use and overexploitation. Human social learning and coope…
Teach: An Ethogram-based Method to Observe and Record Teaching Behavior
Teaching has attracted growing research attention in studies of human and animal behavior as a crucial behavior that coevolved with human cultural capacities. However, the synthesis of data on teaching across species and across human populations has proven elusive because researchers use a variety of definitions and methods to approach the topic. I propose a novel method for the study of teaching behavior to be used across disciplines and populat…
Patterns of paternal investment predict cross-cultural variation in jealous response
Dynamics of behavior change in the Covid world
All of the policies adopted or proposed so far to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus require immediate and extensive behavioral change. However, changing behavior is difficult even when the benefits are borne by solid science. Doing so effectively requires an appreciation for how people learn behaviors and translate information into action. Evidence-based policies for altering health behaviors are not new. For example, a decade-old systemat…
Opportunities for Interaction: Natural Observations of Children’s Social Behavior in Five Societies
The Life History of Learning Subsistence Skills among Hadza and BaYaka Foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo
Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural …
BaYaka Adolescent Boys Nominate Accessible Adult Men as Preferred Spear Hunting Models
Humans are selective social learners. In a cultural landscape with many potential models, learners must balance the cost associated with learning from successful models with learning from accessible ones. Using structured interviews, we investigate the model selection biases of Congolese BaYaka adolescent boys learning to hunt with spears (n = 24; mean age [mage] = 15.79 years; range, 12-20 years). Results from social relations models suggest tha…
Effective climate change adaptation means supporting community autonomy
A roadmap to doing culturally grounded developmental science
This paper provides a roadmap for engaging in cross-cultural, developmental research in practical, ethical, and community-engaged ways. To cultivate the flexibility necessary for conducting cross-cultural research, we structure our roadmap as a series of questions that each research program might consider prior to embarking on cross-cultural examinations in developmental science. Within each topic, we focus on the challenges and opportunities inh…
Construct validity in cross-cultural, developmental research: Challenges and Strategies for Improvement
The recent expansion of cross-cultural research in the social sciences has led to increased discourse on methodological issues involved when studying culturally diverse populations. However, discussions have largely overlooked the challenges of construct validity – ensuring instruments are measuring what they are intended to – in diverse cultural contexts, particularly in developmental research. We contend that cross-cultural developmental resear…
Psychology (10 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (6 works) · Language and cultural evolution (6 works) · Biology (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Social Psychology (4 works) · Developmental psychology (3 works)