Cultural commons and cultural evolution

TL;DR

This paper explores cultural evolution as a process similar to biological evolution, emphasizing the role of group identity in enabling cultural diversity and coexistence within shared environments.

Contribution

It introduces a model of cultural evolution where group membership influences agents' environmental niche exploitation, highlighting the importance of collective identity for cultural diversity.

Findings

Different cultures can coexist in the same environment due to group-based niche exploitation.

Group identity significantly impacts cultural evolution and diversity.

The model demonstrates the role of collective good in cultural persistence.

Abstract

Culture evolves following a process that is akin to biological evolution, although with some significant differences. At the same time culture has often a collective good value for human groups. This paper studies culture in an evolutionary perspective, with a focus on the implications of group definition for the coexistence of different cultures. A model of cultural evolution is presented where agents interacts in an artificial environment. The belonging to a specific memetic group is a major factor allowing agents to exploit different environmental niches with, as a result, the coexistence of different cultures in the same environment.