We will produce 2-3 case studies for updating formal models of cultural evolution to address social change in contemporary “digital age” societies, allowing the field to better contribute to a thriving future. In doing so, we will also build up an international network of theoretically-minded researchers working on updating cultural evolutionary theory, which will better position us to continue to make advances well after the funding period.
Among theoretical frameworks, cultural evolutionary theory (CET) arguably has the most coherent explanations for a wide range of social phenomena, including cooperation, social learning, norms, and intergroup conflict, but it is currently calibrated for pre-digital (and often pre-industrial) societies. This limits its current applicability for addressing modern problems and improving our world.
We will convene scholars conversant with formal approaches to cultural evolution to extend CET to tackle the pressing societal problems of our time, including polarization, rising authoritarian, climate inaction, inequality, and social unrest. Moreover, while much of CET has dealt with understanding change, a modern lens also allows us to target resilience and stability.
Our outputs will include an agenda paper providing a example-driven discussion for upskilling cultural evolutionary modelers, original modeling work toward the project aims, and a proposal for an edited book that provides in-depth instruction for building cultural evolution models for addressing problems of the 21st century and beyond. Perhaps more importantly, we will bring together a network of scholars to coalesce around a shared purpose with shared tools. The project can help set the agenda for the next decade of research on the cultural evolution of contemporary societies, and ultimately has the potential to revolutionize modern social science and improve society at large.
