The evolution of cultural heritage as preservation and mutation: Integrating genetic (vertical) and epidemiologic (horizontal) models.
Item
-
Title
-
The evolution of cultural heritage as preservation and mutation: Integrating genetic (vertical) and epidemiologic (horizontal) models.
-
Identifier
-
AAI3047236
-
identifier
-
3047236
-
Creator
-
Kusell, Hans Rainer.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Robert F. Rockwell
-
Date
-
2002
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Anthropology, Cultural
-
Abstract
-
Graduating high school pupils (N = 1158), and a subset of parents, were interviewed and tested in 35 locations in the U.S. and Europe, on a theory predicting (a) a conflict between "vertical" ("parwrit": parent, writing,) and "horizontal" ("peertel": peer, televideo) cultural transmission, and (b) a cross-generational population trend from the "vertical" toward the "horizontal.";Evidence presented by historians and developmentalists on a fundamental shift in the human "ecological niche" and childhood rearing practices during very recent generations was interpreted in terms of an "integrated model." This was based on an extension by analogy of Wright's island and isolation-by-distance formulation, prior studies applying DNA and epidemiological analogues to cultural transmission, especially by Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, and the related concepts of extended phenotype and meme-flow of Dawkins.;"Vertical" parental presence in the childhood home, high calibre of schooling and related learning of languages, reading in general and of fairy tales, and time at home, correlated, as predicted, positively with one another, and negatively with a cluster of variables including "horizontal" peer "sleepovers," number of siblings, and high usage of telephone and TV. Parwrit childhood indices were also found to correlate positively, and peertel variables negatively, with adulthood variables putatively measuring erudition, maturity, idealism, and a preference for individual and one-on-one over group activities. A "sensitive period" for parental presence was found for certain years of early childhood, as was the predicted differentiating effect of the presence of both parents. The ratio of parental to sibling presence in childhood was found determinative, as predicted (as opposed to the Zajonc and Schacter hypotheses).;In line with the theory, "verticals" were found to resemble their parents more, and "horizontals" to exhibit higher deviations from norms, with such pattern largely transmitted from generation to generation. Unforeseen was the finding that the calibre of school attended, is the single strongest predictor of the level of adult maturity and erudition, closely followed by a related index of "number of languages learned.";The findings are held to explain why the cultural distance between generations eclipses, for the first time, intra-generational differences, in an apparent increasing erosion of diversity.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
