Every discourse, written or oral, is the conveyer of some hidden agenda of the producer, most importantly in such genres of speech as journalism, politics, propaganda, and advertisements. Given the role of translation in discourse, a difference exists between when the translator carries the ideological values of the elite in contrast with one with patriotic preferences. In this study a comparis...

Every discourse, written or oral, is the conveyer of some hidden agenda of the producer, most importantly in such genres of speech as journalism, politics, propaganda, and advertisements. Given the role of translation in discourse, a difference exists between when the translator carries the ideological values of the elite in contrast with one with patriotic preferences. In this study a comparis...

ABSTRACTUsing data from the 2001 Census Public Use Microdata Files on Individuals, we examine the role of cultural preferences and economic constraints in elderly Canadians' choice of living arrangements (living with one's children and/or other relatives versus living independently). We find that members of ethnic groups holding familistic cultural values (Italian, Chinese, South Asian, and Eas...

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Many cultural traits exhibit volatile dynamics, commonly dubbed fashions or fads. Here we show that realistic fashion-like dynamics emerge spontaneously if individuals can copy others' preferences for cultural traits as well as traits themselves. We demonstrate this dynamics in simple mathematical models of the diffusion, and subsequent abandonment, of a single cultural trait which individuals ...

should provide a framework for the effective investigation of the entire complex problem of the intellectual processes of society—a study by which society as a whole seeks a perceptive relation to its total environment. It should lift the study of intellectual life from that of a scrutiny of the individual to an inquiry into the means by which a society, nation, or culture achieves understandin...

Previous work showed high agreement in facial attractiveness preferences within and across cultures. The aims of the current study were twofold. First, we tested cross-cultural agreement in the attractiveness judgements of White Scottish and Black South African students for own- and other-ethnicity faces. Results showed significant agreement between White Scottish and Black South African observ...

In humans, both sexes sometimes show peculiar mating preferences that do not appear to increase their fitness either directly or indirectly. As humans may transmit their preferences and target culturally, and these may be artificially modifiable, I develop theoretical models where a preference and/or a trait are culturally transmitted with a restriction of the trait modification. I assume a mon...

This paper seeks answers to two questions. First, if a greater social activity of an individual enhances oblique (i.e. to non-relatives) transmission of her cultural traits at the expense of vertical (i.e. to children) transmission as well as family size, which behavior is optimal from cultural evolution standpoint? I formalize a general model that characterizes evolutionarily stable behaviors....

The purpose of this article is to examine the tendency to express and promote autonomy in the socialization of children in Estonia, a society with rapid ongoing social, political and economical changes. Autonomy has been regarded as being self-initiating in actions, feeling ownership of them, and expressing one’s opinion, preferences and feelings. This contribution reviews the findings from our...