Cultural Learning

February 19, 2021 Jeremiah Hendren

Cultural Learning

Tomasello, Michael, Ann C. Kruger, and Hilary H. Ratner
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16, no. 3 (1993): 495-511
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0003123X

Many animal species live in complex social groups; only humans live in cultures. Cultures are most clearly distinguished from other forms of social organization by the nature of their products—for example, material artifacts, social institutions, behavioral traditions, and languages. These cultural products share, among other things, the characteristic that they accumulate modifications over time. Once a practice is begun by some member or members of a culture others acquire it relatively faithfully, but then modify it as needed to deal with novel exigencies. The modified practice is then acquired by others, including progeny, who may in turn add their own modifications, and so on across generations. This accumulation of modifications over time is often called the “ratchet-effect,” because each modification stays firmly in place in the group until further modifications are made. No cultural products exhibiting anything like the ratchet effect have ever been observed in the ontogenetically acquired behaviors or products of nonhuman animals (Tomasello 1990).

Michael Tomasello et al.

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