This paper explores the origins of a subjective sense of meaning in life from the perspective of cultural group selection within evolutionary theory. Philosophical underpinnings are discussed, as are the origins or morality and social groups. It is argued that a subjective meaning acts as a motivator of cultural transactions which allowed pre-human groups possessing meaning to survive over grou...

Cultural-historical psychology as it was developed in the 1930s by L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leont’ev, and A.R. Luria addresses the psychological development and dy’namics of the societal individual. This approach understands the individual mind and psyche in relation to forms of social activity in common practices. As proposed by the theory of activity (e.g. Leont’ev 1978), human activity typically ...

how can we develop a viable vision of relations between history and social theory? A comparison of three recent books clarifies the stakes and possibilities of the question. Peter Burke’s History and Social Theory looks out at social and cultural theory from the viewpoint of historical practice, sorting theoretical resources chiefly by their contribution to that practice. Julia Adams, Elisabeth...

Cumulative cultural evolution is what 'makes us odd'; our capacity to learn facts and techniques from others, and to refine them over generations, plays a major role in making human minds and lives radically different from those of other animals. In this article, I discuss cognitive processes that are known collectively as 'cultural learning' because they enable cumulative cultural evolution. T...

A persistent, but little researched, theme in demographic transition theory is that of transition, especially fertility transition, lagging for cultural reasons behind changes in material circumstances. A sub-theme is that of the lag time being shortened by social upheaval challenging the cultural retardants and thus causing demographic behaviour to catch up with economic reality. This paper ex...

Most sociological research assumes that social network composition shapes individual beliefs. Network theory and research has not adequately considered that internalized cultural worldviews might affect network composition. Drawing on a synthetic, dualprocess theory of culture and two waves of nationally-representative panel data, this article shows that woridvlews are strong predictors of chan...

This article outlines a theory of subjectivity and social consciousness that complements prevalent debates in cultural studies about marginality and subjectivity. The article suggests that we can interpret the constitution of subjectivity sociologically as between the nation-state and global market integration. More broadly, we can think about social processes in global market capitalism throug...

This paper argues that the economics of the family can be much enriched by incorporating recent developments in evolutionary biology, animal behavior studies, cultural evolution, anthropology, and game theory. Evolutionary foundations of sympathy between relatives are explored. Applications of the theory of cultural evolution to the demographic transition and to wealth transfers between generat...

In the past few decades, scholars from several disciplines have pursued the curious parallel noted by Darwin between the genetic evolution of species and the cultural evolution of beliefs, skills, knowledge, languages, institutions, and other forms of socially transmitted information. Here, I review current progress in the pursuit of an evolutionary science of culture that is grounded in both b...