Journal Article Epublish
PubMed: 42757527 DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X2610644X
Before social tinkering: Self‑organisation and collective social niches as foundations of cultural complexity.
Behav Brain Sci 49:e413
Authors: Cedric Sueur, Jean-Louis Deneubourg, Michael A Huffman
Affiliations
- Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
- Université Libre de Bruxelles: Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
- Nagasaki University: Nagasaki Daigaku, Japan.
Abstract
Chater & Christiansen argue that cultural complexity emerges from incremental "social tinkering." We extend this by proposing that collective social niche construction - the self-organized modification of social environments - provides the necessary substrate for such tinkering. By examining adaptive social networks in animal societies, we show how structural complexity can accumulate through feedback loops before explicit rules or linguistic conventions emerge.
MeSH
Psychology, Behavioral Sciences, Foundations, Neurology, Cognition