Behavior as Relationship: Cultural Universals, the relationship between genetic and learned.
We are now pretty sure the so-called “nature-nurture debate”is an archaic red herring Scientifically speaking; behavior is a dynamic relationship between a phenotype (individual) and his/her environment, that environment being in a state of constant change.
In essence the basic general categories of behavior are “genetic”, the expression of the related complex behavior, is learned. Those categories are called Cultural Universals( AKA Anthropological Universal or Human Universal).
These are the general types of behavior (action and internal) that apparently are shared across all cultures. The easy way to look at it:
Every baby comes into the world with the universals hardwired in the wetware. How those express into behaviors, and how strong the expression is depends on the post-birth experience, including most importantly, what it learns from the people around it.
Reference
Cultural Universals ( AKA Anthropological Universal or Human Universal), as discussed by Emile Durkheim, George Murdock, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Donald Brown and others, is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide.
THE EVOLUTION OF CHILDHOOD Relationships, Emotion, Mind, Melvin Konner, The Belknap Press ofHarvard University Press (2010)
Excerpt
"Universals, Adaptation, Enculturation, and Culture Universals of Human Behavior and CultureThe concept of universals has atleast five different meanings:
1.Behaviors, such as coordinated bipedal walking or smiling in social greeting, that are exhibited by all normal members of every known society.
2.Behaviors that are universal within an age or sex class, such as the Moro reflex in all normal neonates or the muscle contraction patternsof orgasm inpostpubertal males.
3.Statistical regularities that apply to all populations but not to all individuals, such as the sex difference in physical aggressiveness or the suitability of the same five factors to explain personality variation in widely disparate cultures. 4.Universal features of culture rather than of behavior, such as taboos against incest and homicide, some form of marriage, or the social construction ofillness and attempts at healing.
5.Characteristics that, although unusual or even rare, are found atsome level in every population, such as homicidal violence, thought disorder, major depression, suicide, and incest. Cultural Universals Language, including:
Broadcast transmission/directional reception
Rapid fading of signal in basic usage
Interchangeability of speakers
Extragenetic transmission
Specialization for communicationSemanticity/symbolic capacity
Arbitrariness of link between signal and object
Displacement in time and space; abstraction
Discreteness of elements
Productivity at phonemic and morphemic levels
Duality of patterning (meat versus team; man bites dog)
Functions of communication and deception
Phonetic contrasts (vocal/nonvocal, stops/nonstop)
Phoneme number between 10 and 70
Nouns, verbs, and possessives
Other grammatical features; mutual translatability
Synonyms and antonyms
Color-naming sequence patterns
Words for certain concepts (for example, dark, light, face, hand)
Binary conceptual discriminations (good/bad, old/young)
Certain kin terms (mother, father, son daughter)
Age/sex terminology (child, adult, male, female)
Pronouns (at least three persons and two numbers)
Proper names for individuals
Conversational turn-taking and other pragmatics
High-pitch, high-inflection speech to infants
Special forms for special occasions
Poetic speech (broken by pauses about three seconds apart)
Consequences for prestige or status
Narrative: autobiographic; event-specific; fictional/mythic
Historic linguistic change
Connitive/perceptual process, including:
Tendency to dichotomize from underlying continua
Hierarchically arranged color taxonomy priorities
Nonverbal communication, including:
Some equivalent facial expressions including those for:
Joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt
Smile with brow flash ingreeting
Coy/flirtatious behavior sequence
Laughter, squeals of delight, weeping in joy and grief
Childhood physical aggression (hit, kick, shove, bite; boys more)
Play-fighting (chase, flee, wrestle, play face; boys more)
Social psychology/social cognition, including:
Sense of self as subject and object
Recognition of individuals by faces
Intersubjective folk psychology; social metacognition
Sense of distinctive peoplehood
Emotions, including:
Childhood fears, separation, strangers, snakes, loud noise, darkJoy/happiness Disgust Generalized anxiety
Sadness; grief in loss
Anger/rage
Attachment, from infancy; parental devotion; romantic love
Sexual attraction; sexual jealousy
Material culture, including:
Systematic, varied toolmaking from stone bone, wood, metal
Tools to cut, pound, pierce, gouge, throw, and so on
Containers (such as hollowed wood skulls, ostrich eggs)
Devices for tying things together (string, vine, sinew, wire)
Shelter from the elements
Draping, painting, or otherwise enhancing/covering the body
Weapons
Controlled, productive use (not necessarily making) of fire
Knowledge and use of medicinals or alleged medicinals
Consciousness-altering substances
Social organization, including:
Mother-child unit, usually with associated males(s)
Marriage (legitimation of sex and offspring)
Pattern of socialization/enculturation of children
Grandparents’ participation in child care
Relatives distinguished from nonrelatives
Division of labor by sex and age
Male attraction to nubile females
Female attraction to powerful males
Male abuse of power
Reciprocity: exchanges and sharing; cheating
Property, at least personal property
Conflict at individual and group levels
Most organized and spontaneous violence due to men
Ascribed and achieved status/role beyond age, sex, and kinship
Hierarchically arranged kin naming priorities
Cultural patterns, including:
Etiquette, customary greetings, hospitality
Rituals, including rites of passage and mourning the dead
Dietary prescriptions and proscriptions; taboos
Folk narratives, music, poetry, song, dance
Decorative/plastic arts beyond body adornment
Sexual regulation, including extended incest rules
Standards of sexual modesty
Proscription of in-group violence, rape, murder
Redress of grievances; mediation; punishment
Distinguishing right from wrong
Recognizing intentionality and responsibility
Ethical dualism: different rules for in-group versus out-group
Belief system, including:
Supernatural entities beyond the visible and palpable
Theories of illness and healing, life after death
Worldview; the world’s structure and the place of people in it
Dreams and their interpretation
Historical and origin narratives
Aberrant behavior at some low level, including:
Crimes of rape, assault, theft, homicide, murder
Mental illness: anxiety, thought and conduct disorders, depression, suicide "
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal
"A cultural universal (also called ananthropological universal orhuman universal),asdiscussed byEmile Durkheim, George Murdock, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Donald Brown andothers, is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the human condition.
Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviors or traits that occuru niversally in all cultures are good candidates for evolutionary adaptations.
Someanthropological and sociological theorists that take acultural relativist perspective may deny the existence of cultural universals: the extent to which these universals are "cultural" in the narrow sense, or in fact biologically inherited behavior is an issue of "nature versus nurture".
In his book Human Universals (1991), Donald Brown defines human universals as comprising "those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are noknown exception", providing a list of 67 items.
The emergence of these universals dates to the Upper Paleolithic, with the first evidence of full behavioral modernity. Among the cultural universals listed by Brown (1991) are:
Language and cognition
Language employed to manipulate others
Language employed to misinform or mislead
Language is translatable
Abstraction in speech and thought
Antonyms, synonyms
Logical notions of "and," "not," "opposite," "equivalent," "part/whole," "general/particular"
Binary cognitive distinctions
Color terms: black, white
Classification of: age, behavioral propensities, body parts, colors, fauna, flora, innerstates, kin, sex, space, tools, weather conditions
Continua (ordering as cognitive pattern)
Discrepancies between speech, thought, and action
Figurative speech, metaphors
Symbolism, symbolic speech
Synesthetic metaphors
Tabooed utterances
Special speech for special occasions
Prestige from proficient use of language (e.g. poetry)
Planning
Units of time
Society
Personal names
Family or household
Kin groups
Myth, ritual and aesthetics
Technology
Peer groups not based on family
Actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
Affection expressed and felt
Age grades
Age statuses
Age terms
Law: rights and obligations, rules of membership
Moral sentiments
Distinguishing right and wrong, good and bad
Promise/oath
Prestige in equalities
Leaders
De facto oligarch
Property
Coalitions
Collective identities
Conflict
Cooperative labor
Gender roles
Males dominate public/political realm
Males more aggressive, more prone to lethal violence, more prone to theft
Males engage in more coalitional violence
Males on average travel greater distances over lifetime
Marriage
Husband older than wife on average
Copulation normally conducted in privacy
Incest prevention or avoidance, incest between mother and son unthinkable o rtabooed
Rape, but rape proscribed
Collective decision making
Etiquette
Inheritance rules
Generosity admired, gift giving
Redress of wrongs, sanctions
Sexual jealousy
Shame
Territoriality
Triangular awareness (assessing relationships among the self and two other people)
Some forms of proscribed violence
Visiting
Trade
Myth, ritual and aesthetics
Myth and ritual
Magical thinking
Use of magic to increase life and win love
Beliefs about death
Beliefs about disease
Beliefs about fortune and misfortune
Divination
Attempts to control weather
Dream interpretation
Beliefs and narratives
Proverbs, sayingsPoetry/rhetorics
Healing practices, medicine
Childbirth customs
Rites of passage
Music, rhythm, dance
Play
Toys, playthings
Death rituals, mourning
Feasting
Body adornment
Hairstyles
Art
Technology
Shelter
Control of fire
Tools, tool making
Weapons, spear
Containers
Cooking
Lever
Tying material"
Human Universals... compiled by Donald E. Brown ..as published in The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, 2002, New York: Viking Press
9 Brown, D.E. 1991.Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill also see Brown, D.E., 2000. Human universals and their implications. In N. Roughley (Ed.) Being humans: Anthropological universality and particularity in transdisplinary perspectives.New York: Walter de Gruyter.
"abstraction in speech & thought
actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control
aesthetics
affection expressed and felt
age grades
age statuses
age terms
ambivalence
anthropomorphization
anticipation
antonyms
attachment
baby talk
belief in supernatural/religion beliefs,
false beliefs about death
beliefs about disease
beliefs about fortune and misfortune
binary cognitive distinctions
biological mother and social mother normally the same person
black (color term)
body adornment
childbirth customs
childcare
childhood fears
childhood fear of loud noises
childhood fear of strangers
choice making (choosing alternatives)
classification
classification of age
classification of behavioral propensities
classification of body parts
classification of colors
classification of fauna classification of flora
classification of inner states
classification of kin
classification of sex
classification of space
classification of tools
classification of weather conditions
coalitions
collective identities
incest between mother and son unthinkable or tabooed
incest, prevention or avoidance
in-group distinguished from out-group(s)
in-group biases in favor of
inheritance rules
institutions (organized co-activities)
insulting
intention
interest in bioforms (living things or things that resemble them)
interpolation
interpreting behavior
intertwining (e.g., weaving)
jokes
judging others
kin
close distinguished from distant
kin groups
kin terms translatable by basic relations of procreation
kinship
statuses
language
language employed to manipulate others
language employed to misinform or mislead
language is translatable
language not a simple reflection of reality
language, prestige from proficient use of
law (rights and obligations)
law (rules of membership)
leaders
lever
likes and dislikes
linguistic redundancy
logical notions
logical notion of "and"
logical notion of "equivalent"
logical notion of "general/particular"
logical notion of "not"
logical notion of "opposite"
logical notion of "part/whole"
logical notion of "same"
magic
magic to increase life
magic to sustain life
magic to win love
making comparisons
male and female and adult and child seen as having different natures
males dominate public/political realm
males engage in more coalitional violence
males more aggressive"
Brief Notes
on Altruism and Tolerance/Intolerance
The word altruism in the biological/behavioral sciences has a distinct meaning,
different from the word’s
common usage. Essentially it means three different
things.
Kinship Based Altruism:
A phenotype (individual)
acting for, or in cooperation with, other phenotypes to which it is closely
genetically related. Common behavior trait of most life.
Tag Mediated Contingent Altruism:
Cooperation by phenotype
(individual) with conspecifics (other members of its species)
that display shared
labels, markings or other
ques; sometimes referred to as
“tags”. Found in social
species.
Reciprocal Altruism:
A phenotype (individual) acting for, or in cooperation with, other phenotypes to which it is not closely
genetically related,
for benefit. Only found in the behavior
of most advanced social
species. Economic behavior is a way humans engage in reciprocal
altruism virtually over space, and into future
time. Most basic form is
illustrated by the concept
of tit for tat in game theory.
Also known as you scratch
my back, I’ll scratch
yours. J
Tag Mediated Contingent Altruism can be very problematic in advanced animal, including us. Cooperation requires trust. If two unrelated
people do not know each other (some
degree shared experiential
history), and the fewer labels, markings, ques, “tags” they share, dress,
skin color, dialect,
behave etc. The less
probable “instant” trust. If a child is raised to distrust or fear people with certain tags or
tag
sets, ya gonna have some trouble.
“Diversity” involves a wide variety of
tags.
Sometimes, a clash of “tags” leads
to Pseudospeciation. That is the tendency of phenotypes (individuals) of social species to behave towards others of their specie,
that are not of the same variant,
as if those that differ
are not the same specie as
themselves. Examples
in Humans include
nationality, ethnic
identity, ethnic hatred,
“race”, racism, etc.
Human Socially Obligate Boundary Conditions and Related Cultural Universals
Jay Moynihan 07/05/2015
The Cultural Universals are from:
The Evolution of Childhood Relationships, Emotion, Mind, Melvin Konner, The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, (2010)
Human Universals... compiled by Donald E. Brown
..as published in The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, 2002, New York: Viking Press
Brown, D.E. 1991. Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill
Note: Socially Obligate Boundary Condition is A set of social parameters or conditions that evolved in a specie, that limits its behavior at a given point in space time. May change in adaptation to changing conditions, including social conditions. Jsm, Air Water Ground .
Pseudospeciation Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (PSOBC)
Extra-genetic transmission of language
Kin Terms (language)
Binary conceptual discrimination (language)
Historic linguistic change
Childhood physical aggression (more so in males)
Recognition of individual faces
Sense of distinctive peoplehood
Relatives distinguished from non-relatives
Conflict at individual & group levels
Ethical dualism; different rules for in-group/out-group
Belief in supernatural entities
Territoriality
Historical & origin narratives
Dispersal of groups
Discrimination (pseudospeciation )
Fear of strangers
Negative identification of us/them
Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)
Sense of self as subject/object
Vertical Dominance Hierarchy Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (VSOBC)
Kin Terms (language)
Division of labor by sex and age
Females attracted to powerful males
Male abuse of power
Ascribed & achieved status role beyond age, sex, kinship
Perscription off behaviors
Belief in supernatural entities
Crime
Mimicry
Moral sentiment
Leaders
Defacto oligarchies
Collective decision making
Territoriality
Inheritance rules
Nepotism
Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)
Cultural coherence (overarching themes)
Status Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (SSOBC)
Childhood Physical aggression (males more so in males)
Play fighting
Division of labor by sex and age
Females attracted to powerful males
Male attraction to nubile females
Ascribed & achieved status role beyond age, sex, kinship
Cultural coherence (overarching themes)
Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)
Symbolism
Defacto oligarchy
Territoriality
Sense of self as subject/object
Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (ESOBC)
Reciprocity, exchanges, cheating
Personal Property
Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)
Symbolism
Cultural Schematization
Abstract thought
Trade
Sense of self as subject/object
Systemic, varied tool making
Reciprocal exchange
Turn taking
I am toying with recognizing spirituality as a SOBC.?
IF Spirituality Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (SPSOBC)
Belief in supernatural entities
Symbolic thought
Sense of self as subject/object
Abstract thought
Cultural Schematization
Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)
Rituals
Fear of death
Death rituals/mourning
Dream interpretation
Beliefs about death
Narratives
Historical & origin narratives
Moral sentiment
Consciousness altering substances
Belief in life after death
World view
Anthropomorphization
Culture / nature distinction
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