Decision-making, cultural transmission and adaptation in economic anthropology
Decision-making, cultural transmission and adaptation in economic anthropology
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经济人类学中的决策、文化传播与适应
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发表时间：
2001
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通讯作者：
J. Henrich
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作者：
J. Henrich
本文认为，经济人类学家需要减少对成本效益决策的依赖，并纳入对社会学习，文化传播和信息处理的认知理解。人类的行为模式不太可能主要是成本效益决策的产物，因为：1）实验室数据表明，人类的信息处理充满了错误，偏见和错误校准，如果这是我们适应或实现个人目标的主要模式，我们应该观察到适应不良或目标回避行为的系统模式; 2）人种学数据表明，个人往往缺乏典型的成本效益模型所需的各种信息。作为一个理论的替代，我认为，人类严重依赖于偏见的文化传播。通过选择性地复制某些个人或思想，有偏见的文化传播可以（随着时间的推移）产生我们在人种学上观察到的整合良好的、适应性强的行为模式。
This paper argues that economic anthropologists need to reduce their reliance on cost-benefit decisionmaking, and incorporate a cognitively informed understanding of social learning, cultural transmission and information processing. Human behavioral patterns are unlikely to be primarily a product of cost-benefit decision-making because: 1) Laboratory data show that human information processing is so fraught with errors, biases and mis-calibrations that, if this is our primary mode of adaptation or of achieving individual goals, we should observe systematic patterns of maladaptation or of goal-averting behavior; and 2) Ethnographic data show that individuals often lack the kinds of information required by typical cost-benefit models. As a theoretical alternative, I argue that humans rely heavily on biased cultural transmission. By selectively copying certain individuals or ideas, biased cultural transmission can (over time) generate the well-integrated, adaptive, behavioral patterns that we observe ethnographically.