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In the study of cultural evolution, human culture is generally assumed to be cumulative, implying increasing complexity and diversity over time (Enquist et al. 2011, Lewis & Laland 2012). Recent studies suggest that evolutionary mechanisms operate differently in different cultural domains (Tamariz et al. 2016), but it has not been discussed whether all mechanisms result in cumulativity. Experiments have shown that compositional language structure emerge as a trade-off between learnability and expressivity (Kirby et al. 2008, 2015), but there is no evidence of languages generally becoming more compositional, or regular, over time. As all modern natural languages are expressive enough for human communicative needs and compressed enough for generational transmission, we suggest that linguistic complexity is 19 not currently cumulative but breaks down and builds up in cycles triggered by demographically determined variation in learnability and expressivity pressures. We focus on pidgins, a special case of natural languages where the expressivity pressure is presumably weaker and learnability pressure stronger than in other languages. We compare pidgins to creoles, where both expressivity and learnability pressures are presumably high, and non-contact languages where the learnability pressure is presumably lower, allowing for more complexity. We analyze compiled material from spoken and written pidgins, spoken creoles and non-contact languages and a parallel bible corpus, applying two complexity measures: the relation between word length and frequency, and pronominal morphology. We observe a smaller degree of exponentiality in the negative correlation between word length and frequency in pidgins than in their lexifiers, likely reflecting the loss of short and common grammatical words. Creoles expose a higher exponentiality in this correlation, which may reflect a newly built up analytical grammar. For pronouns, we observe expected reduced marking of person, number, c

In this paper we extend the Granovetter threshold model with partial participation towards a collective action. That is, agents may partake by conducting an action that is less costly than the ultimate collective action, but costly enough to signal a commitment to the cause. We show that it is not just the exact distribution of thresholds, but also the distribution of available actions that determines whether a collective action will be achieved. We suggest and prove propositions for how both an inventive activist and a dictator may strategically change the signaling value of existing actions, or introduce new ones, in order to either instigate or stifle collective action. Applying the theory to revolutions, we argue that new technology can play a role beyond that of communication and synchronization, viz. that of adding modes of partial, less arduous, participation.

Here we present an analytical technique for the measurement and evaluation of changes in chronologically sequenced assemblages. To illustrate the method, we studied the cultural evolution of European cooking as revealed in seven cook books dispersed over the past 800 years. We investigated if changes in the set of commonly used ingredients were mainly gradual or subject to fashion fluctuations. Applying our method to the data from the cook books revealed that overall, there is a clear continuity in cooking over the ages - cooking is knowledge that is passed down through generations, not something (re-) invented by each generation on its own. Looking at three main categories of ingredients separately (spices, animal products and vegetables), however, disclosed that all ingredients do not change according to the same pattern. While choice of animal products was very conservative, changing completely sequentially, changes in the choices of spices, but also of vegetables, were more unbounded. We hypothesize that this may be due a combination of fashion fluctuations and changes in availability due to contact with the Americas during our study time period. The presented method is also usable on other assemblage type data, and can thus be of utility for analyzing sequential archaeological data from the same area or other similarly organized material.

From a game theoretic point of view, a social norm can sometimes be considered as a Nash equilibrium in a coordination game. Here we point out a psychological reason why such a social norm might erode, even if it is beneficial and agents have rational intentions. The reason is a well-established bias in interpersonal perception, the better-than-average effect. Psychological research on this bias has mainly focused on skills and personality attributes, rather than normative behavior. In a series of online surveys, we demonstrate that the better-than-average effect applies also to judgments of the likelihood to engage in petty corruption, a very important domain of social norms. We conclude that this psychological bias may be a factor that contributes to the difficulty of establishing noncorruption.

Prior research has linked religiosity to certain forms of self-enhancement. We extend this literature by three studies linking religiosity to the well-established better-than-average effect (BAE). First, a reanalysis of self-judgments of desirable characteristics in 15 nations showed that the BAE was stronger in more religious countries, even taking into account gross domestic product, interdependence, and economic inequality. Second, in two online surveys totaling 1,000 Americans, the BAE was stronger among more religious individuals. Several observations indicated that this relation was due to individuals self-stereotyping with respect to their religious in-groups. In particular, the relation was restricted to characteristics on the warmth dimension, consistent with the religious stereotype, and the average religious in-group member tended to be judged even more favorably than self. The latter phenomenon, which we term humble self-enhancement, is consistent with other studies linking stronger religiosity to greater favoritism of the religious in-group and greater derogation of religious out-groups.

The Conference held in collaboration with the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL) and the Associação de Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa e Espanhola (ACBLPE).