Subject: Social and Political Sciences Number of words: 550 Number of sources: 3 Instructions   Sociologists define society as a fairly large number of people who reside in the same geographic area,

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Culture and Process of Social Transmission

The interface between culture and social transmission has always been a concept of interest to many researchers. As Legare says, humans engage in culturally created and transmitted behaviors (7877). Importantly, sociological studies indicate that both human and nonhuman species learn and respond to social information (Legare 7877). However, unlike nonhuman beings who transmit particular behaviors through rudimentary mechanisms, human beings exhibit a structurally complex cultural transmission form. Hence, this paper's core focus is to elucidate the social transmission of culture among humans.

Humans live in culturally constructed environments in which they inherit, accumulate, and modify factors and objects such as beliefs, skills, practices, language, and artifacts. According to Legare, these dynamic elements explain the distinct cultural variations across societies globally (7877). Cultural transmission takes three forms: vertical, horizontal, and cumulative. Vertical transmission occurs across generations, explaining why young children learn culture through imitation (Legare 7879). Horizontal transmission occurs across groups, in which people within one group borrow cultural practices embraced by another (Legare, 7877). Finally, cumulative transmission entails incorporating cultural practices into a society's repertoire. As Legare elucidates, cumulative cultural transmission ensures progressive innovation by refining previous generations' practices (7877). These modes of cultural transmission and factors such as language explain why cultures differ significantly across populations.

Gelman and Roberts acknowledge that language plays an indispensable role in innovating, transmitting, and maintaining cultural stability (7900). In particular, Gelman and Roberts agree that language is a guide to social reality since it comprises a semantic system that facilitates cultural values transmission. For instance, the acculturation of infants rides on the dual engines of copying others and invention. When undergoing the language learning process, children not only learn how to listen and speak, but they simultaneously learn to associate meanings to events taking place within their environment. One instance of social transmission is the learning process among infants. According to Marno and Csibra, humans tend to create associations across events, and that validation is crucial for conveying generalizable knowledge (1-2). Further, McGuigan et al. indicate that exposing infants to social and asocial environments significantly determines their ability to assimilate social and cultural practices (2). In this case, when the child is learning a language, they also consciously and subconsciously vast cultural lessons. Thus, the child simultaneously learns the meanings associated with certain aspects of a culture linguistically realized through its language's lexico-grammatical system.

Another example of social transmission entails Victor of Aveyron, a feral child discovered at the age of twelve after living in the woods for seven years (Gabriel 406). After long exposure to such an environment, Victor only projected savage traits, including making wolf-like noises, walking on fours, and exhibiting aggravated social tendencies to people who contradicted him (Gabriel 406). Devoid of culture, Victor was simply a "savage animal." However, it was until Victor became enculturated that he started exhibiting some social tendencies. While the case is atypical, it projects the value of language and social contact in cultural transmission.

Humans attribute their unmatched intellectual accomplishments to cultural transmission. They inherit the social and cultural achievements from one generation and pass them to the next. Nonetheless, it is crucial to recognize the variable nature of culture attributed to the extraordinary diversity in skills and practices. Nonetheless, flexibility also allows them to learn across cultures.

Works Cited

Gabriel, Yiannis. “Case Studies as Narratives: Reflections Prompted by the Case of Victor, the Wild Child of Aveyron.” Journal of Management Inquiry, vol. 28, no. 4, Oct. 2019, pp. 403–408, DOI: 10.1177/1056492617715522.

Gelman, Susan, & Steven Roberts. “How Language Shapes the Cultural Inheritance of Categories.” PNAS, vol. 114, no. 30, 2017, pp. 7900-7907, doi:10.1073/pnas.1621073114.

Legare, Christine. “Cumulative Cultural Learning: Development and Diversity.” PNAS, vol. 114, no. 30, pp. 7877-7883. doi:10.1073/pnas.1620743114

Marno, Hanna, & Gergely Csibra. “Toddlers Favor Communicatively Presented Information over Statistical Reliability in Learning about Artifacts.” PLOS, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 1-6, doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0122129.

McGuigan, Nicola et al. “Innovation and social transmission in experimental micro-societies: exploring the scope of cumulative culture in young children. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 372: 20160425. Doi:1098/rstb.2016.0425