Introduction

1
Introduction

• What is psychology for?
• And why do you need evolutionand culture?

2
Psychology

• Psychology is the study of the human mind.
• The mind is an information processing device.
• It takes information, performs operations with
  it, and then produces outputs.
• It is a computer.
• It has a design.
• It tends to do certain things.
• If we can understand this design, we will explain
  human behavior.

3
Human behavior

• Why understand human behavior?
• Because humans are suffering.
• For example, there is too much racism and ethnic
  conflict.
• If we can produce a good psychological
  explanation of racism, possible solutions will
  suggest themselves.

4
Evolution

• But why do we need evolution?
• Because the design of the human brain is not an
  accident.
• It is the product of millions of years of
  adaptation to specific ecologies.
• People who understand this evolutionary history
  are better equipped to make hypotheses about the
  human mind.

5
Culture

• But why do we need culture?
• Because the human is a learning creature the
  human brain is most highly developed to learn.
• Human behavior cannot be explained without close
  attention to the evolved mechanisms of social
  learning.

6
Well, more precisely. . .

• Human behavior cannot be explained without close
  attention to the mechanisms of social learning,
  and their population-level consequences in
  dynamic feedback, over time.
• (But more about that later dont worry for
  now...)

7
What can the psychologist explain?

• Everything.
• Many feel that some things are the province of
  anthropologists, sociologists, and economists
• But that is not true.
• Everything that humans do which is of interest to
  social and behavioral science, is psychological.
• It is the psychologists business to explain
  everything!

8
Everything is psychology

• Psychologists will eventually explain history. .
  . .
• (But more about that later...)

9
Lets put it to the test

• We shall take a look at something truly
  amazing...
• ...something of societal proportions.
• Political even.
• And what you learn about human psychology in this
  course will explain a big part of why it happened
  (promise).

10
What was Yugoslavia?
11
Ethnic composition before civil war
Serbs
Slavic Muslims
Croats
Albanians
12
Who is Slobodan Milosevic?

• Former president of Yugoslavia.
• Former president of Serbia.
• When? During the civil wars that racked
  Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
• In 1999, he commanded Yugoslavia in its war with
  NATO.

13
This is he
14
Where is he today?

• He is a prisoner of the International Criminal
  Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in The Hague,
  Netherlands.
• He is accused by NATO of war crimes during
  Yugoslavias civil wars and during NATOs bombing
  of Serbia.

15
The event in question

• In 1989 Milosevic gave a speech before several
  hundred thousand Serbs in Kosovo Field, at the
  600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, where
  the Ottoman Turks defeated the defending Serbs.
• This is perhaps the most emotional event in
  Serbian national history.
• We shall take a look at how this speech was
  described in the press in the late 1990s.

16

• In Gazimestan, Milosevic announced that he would
  also launch a war against the other peoples of
  Yugoslavia.
• Radio Europe/Radio Liberty, 2 July 1999, Volume
  3, Number 26 Official US Radios
• he openly threatened force to hold the
  six-republic federation together
• Milosevic on Trial Fall of a Pariah" Newspaper
  Publishing PLC, Independent on Sunday (London)
  July 1, 2001.

17
What Milosevic really said

• Equal and harmonious relations among Yugoslav
  peoples are a necessary condition for the
  existence of Yugoslavia and for it to find its
  way out of the crisis. . . Equal and united
  people can above all become a part of the
  civilization toward which mankind is moving. If
  we cannot be at the head of the column leading to
  such a civilization, there is certainly no need
  for us to be at is tail.
• BBC and US government translation of the speech!

18

• What they claimed he said
• It was a stirringly virulent nationalist speech
  he made in Kosovo, in 1989, harking back to the
  Serb Prince Lazars suicidally brave battle
  against the Turks a mere six centuries ago
• June 5th 1999, The Economist
• What he really said
• Today, it is difficult to say what is the
  historical truth about the Battle of Kosovo and
  what is legend. Today this is no longer
  important. Oppressed by pain and filled with
  hope, the people used to remember and to forget,
  as, after all, all people in the world do, and it
  was ashamed of treachery and glorified heroism. .
  . The answers to those questions will be
  constantly sought by science and the people.
• From the BBC and US government translations!!

19

• it was on St. Vitus' Day, 1989, that Milosevic
  whipped a million Serbs into a nationalist frenzy
  in the speech that capped his ascent to power.
• TIME International, July 9, 2001 v158 i1 p18
• In a fervent speech before a million Serbs, he
  galvanized the nationalist passions that two
  years later fueled the Balkan conflict.
• The New York Times, July 28, 1996, Sunday, Late
  Edition - Final, Section 1 Page 10 Column 1
  Foreign Desk, 1384 words

20

• Nine years ago today, Milosevic's fiery speech
  here to a million angry Serbs was a rallying cry
  for nationalism and boosted his popularity enough
  to make him the country's uncontested leader.
• The Washington Post, June 29, 1998, Monday, Final
  Edition, A SECTION Pg. A10, 354 words.
• Mr. SUDETIC ...the people were whipped up into a
  kind of hysteria Milosevic comes along, whips it
  up into a hysteria of fear...He made his speech
  at the Kosovo battlefield, the site of the famous
  battle from 1389 in 1989, on June 28th.
• National Public Radio (NPR), ALL THINGS
  CONSIDERED (900 PM ET) , March 31, 1999

21
What Milosevic really said

• unity in Serbia will bring prosperity to the
  Serbian people in Serbia and each one of its
  citizens, irrespective of his national or
  religious affiliation
• Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it.
  Today, more than in the past, members of other
  peoples and nationalities also live in it. This
  is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly
  convinced that it is its advantage. National
  composition of almost all countries in the world
  today, particularly developed ones, has also been
  changing in this direction. Citizens of different
  nationalities, religions, and races have been
  living together more and more frequently and more
  and more successfully
• The only differences one can and should allow in
  socialism are between hard working people and
  idlers and between honest people and dishonest
  people. Therefore, all people in Serbia who live
  from their own work, honestly, respecting other
  people and other nations, are in their own
  republic.

22

• Milosevic lassoed Serb nationalism in Kosovo in
  1989 when, in a speech tolling the end of
  multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, he told Serbs there 'No
  one should dare to beat you.'
• The Observer, January 24, 1999, The Observer News
  Page Pg. 21, 1095 words.
• In fact, the words No one should dare to beat
  you appear NOWHERE in the 1989 speech. But the
  Observer puts them in quotes!
• Milosevic said something to that effect not in
  1989 but in 1987, and he was not saying it to
  Serbs in the abstract but to a few Serbian
  peasants who right then and there, that very
  minute, were getting beaten up by Albanian
  policemen in Kosovo (province of Serbia), right
  in front of him.

23

• The Irish Times did something similar
• And here, 10 years ago this month, the Yugoslav
  President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, made his name
  telling a crowd of 500,000 Serbs, "Serbia will
  never abandon Kosovo".
• The Irish Times June 16, 1999 Pg. 13
• But the words Serbia will never abandon Kosovo,
  which the Irish Times puts in quotes (!!!) do NOT
  appear in the text of the speech.

24
Did the media make a mistake?

• How, exactly, can the media make a mistake, here?
• The BBC translated the speech!
• So did the American Government!
• The BBC translation can be pulled up in less than
  a minute using Lexis-Nexis, an archival service
  that all journalists use.
• http//web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/form/academic/
  s_guidednews.html

25
Did the media make a mistake?

• You are not going to believe it, but even the BBC
  reported the opposite of the truth.
• In 1989, on the 600-year anniversary of the
  battle of Kosovo Polje, he Milosevic gathered a
  million Serbs at the site of the battle to tell
  them to prepare for a new struggle. He then began
  to arm and support Serb separatists in Croatia
  and BosniaHe skillfully exploited the myth of
  Kosovo Polje - where the Serbs refused to
  surrender
• BBC "The downfall of Milosevic ", Sunday, 1
  April, 2001, 0717 GMT 0817 UK

26
Did the media make a mistake?

• And that was not the only time the BBC did this.
  Here is another example
• Ten years ago, more than one-million Serbs
  turned out to celebrate the battle's six-hundreth
  anniversary, when President Slobodan Milosevic
  vowed Serbia would never again lose control of
  Kosovo.
• From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
  Monday, June 28, 1999 Published at 0921 GMT
  1021 UK World Europe
• President Milosevic said no such thing in the
  speech.

27
Did the media make a mistake?

• How can the BBC report the opposite of what their
  own translation of the speech says?
• By mistake?
• How do you mistake something for its opposite
  when you are holding the speech in your hands?
• But matters are actually worse, because, in 1989,
  when the speech was given, the BBC reported it
  accurately, as a speech calling for unity and
  tolerance.

28
How they reported at the time

• This is what the BBC reported in 1989, right
  after the speech was given
• Addressing the crowd, Milosevic said that
  whenever they were able to the Serbs had helped
  others to liberate themselves, and they had never
  used the advantage of their being a large nation
  against others or for themselves, Tanjug
  reported. He added that Yugoslavia was a
  multi-national community which could survive
  providing there was full equality for all the
  nations living in it.
• BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, June 29, 1989,
  Thursday, SECTION Part 2 Eastern Europe 2.
  EASTERN EUROPE.

29
How they reported at the time

• Milosevic made not one aggressive reference to
  "Albanian counter-revolutionaries" in Kosovo
  province, the Independent News Service reports
  Instead, he talked of mutual tolerance, "building
  a rich and democratic society" and ending the
  discord which had, he said, led to Serbia's
  defeat here by the Turks six centuries ago.
  "There is no more appropriate place than this
  field of Kosovo to say that accord and harmony in
  Serbia are vital to the prosperity of the Serbs
  and of all other citizens living in Serbia,
  regardless of their nationality or religion," he
  said.
• The Toronto Star, June 29, 1989, Thursday, FINAL
  EDITION, NEWS Pg. A17, 393 words

30
What about side remarks?

• But couldnt it be that Milosevic strayed from
  the written speech?
• Couldnt he have made what the press says as side
  remarks?
• But then the side remarks would have contradicted
  the entire thrust and content of the speech.
• That would have been bizarre.
• Why would Milosevic do that?

31
What about side remarks?

• But we dont have to guess.
• We can determine that Milosevic did not say that
  because some Western reporters were actually at
  the scene.
• For example, the British newspaper The
  Independent had two reporters on-scene, listening
  to the speech.

32
The Independent, in 1989

• he talked of mutual tolerance, 'building a rich
  and democratic society' and ending the discord
  which had, he said, led to Serbia's defeat here
  by the Turks six centuries ago.
• 'There is no more appropriate place than this
  field of Kosovo to say that accord and harmony in
  Serbia are vital to the prosperity of the Serbs
  and of all other citizens living in Serbia,
  regardless of their nationality or religion,' he
  said. Mutual tolerance and co- operation were
  also sine qua non for Yugoslavia 'Harmony and
  relations on the basis of equality among
  Yugoslavia's people are a precondition for its
  existence, for overcoming the crisis.
• -- The Independent, June 29 1989, Thursday,
  Foreign News Pg. 10, 654 words.

33
The Independent, in 2001

• But The Independent, like everybody else, later
  lied about the speech. This is what The
  Independent wrote in 2001
• June 1989, On the stump at Kosovo
  PoljeSerbia's leader sets out his agenda at a
  rally of more than a million Serbs at the Battle
  of Kosovo 600th anniversary celebrations, as he
  openly threatens force to hold the six-republic
  federation together.
• Independent on Sunday (London) July 1, 2001,
  Sunday, SECTION FOREIGN NEWS Pg. 21

34
How is this possible?

• It presents a puzzle.
• But dont lose sight of this the way that speech
  was reported made everybody think that Milosevic
  was a certain kind of person.
• And the lies about the speech occurred when NATO
  was getting ready to bomb Serbia, not before.
• What you learn here will give you most of the
  tools to solve this puzzle. We shall return to
  it.
• But first we have to get through the course! So
  stick around.
• If you would like to see all of my documentation
  on the speech, and also read the original, visit
  this link
• http//emperors-clothes.com/milo/gw.htm

35
What is culture ?

• Defining some useful concepts

36
Culture
37
Culture
38
Culture
39
What culture is not

• Culture is not nature.
• This seems to be the most central part of the
  concept.
• Not nature intuitively means that
• The content of what is produced is not due to an
  instinct specific to that content.
• Whatever is produced this way can be socially
  transmitted.

40
For example, language

• You do have innate adaptations that allow you to
  learn a language from other people.
• But those innate adaptations do not specify
  French.
• Therefore, although speaking a language is
  natural for a human, French (in particular) is
  not.

• Speaking French is an example of culture.

41
Some definitions of culture

• Tylor 1871
• Culture, or civilization,is that complex whole
  which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
  MORALS, CUSTOM, and any other capabilities and
  HABITS acquired by man as a member of society.
• Emphasizes social transmission.
• Habits conventionalization
• Leaves out the material products.

42
Some definitions of culture

• Benedict 1929
• that complex whole which includes all the
  HABITS acquired by man as a member of society.
• Emphasizes social transmission.
• Habits conventionalization
• Leaves out the material products.

43
Some definitions of culture

• Boas 1930
• Culture embraces all the manifestations of
  social HABITS of a community, the reactions of
  the individual as affected by the HABITS of the
  group in which he lives, and the products of
  human activities as determined by these HABITS.
• Leaves out social transmission.
• Habits conventional practices.
• Includes the material products.

44
Some definitions of culture

• Lowie 1937
• the sum total of what an individual acquires
  from his societythose beliefs, CUSTOMS, NORMS,
  food- HABITS, and crafts which comeas a legacy
  from the past
• Emphasizes social transmission.
• Custom, norm, habit conventional practices
• Includes the material products.
• Emphasizes cumulative history.

45
Some definitions of culture

• Malinowski 1944
• the integral whole consisting of implements and
  consumers goods, of constitutional charters for
  the various social groupings, of human ideas and
  crafts, beliefs, and CUSTOMS.
• Leaves out social transmission.
• Customs conventional practices.
• Includes the material products.

46
NOTICE

• complex whole
• all the manifestations
• sum total
• integral whole
• These all suggest that the different items that
  make up culture (or a culture, rather) are
  perceived to be a coherent package.
• Some kind of coherent category is the unit of
  analysis.

47
Some definitions of culture

• Sapir 1924
• any socially inherited element in the life of
  man, material and spiritual.
• Emphasizes social transmission.
• No emphasis on group-wide convention
• No emphasis on coherent totality.
• Includes the material products.

48
Some definitions of culture

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is COMMON AMONG A GROUP OF MEN
  and which is capable of transmission from
  generation to generation or from one country to
  another.
• Emphasizes social transmission.
• Leaves out the material products.
• Emphasizes group-wide conventions.

49
All useless!

• They try to lump too many things together
• The process of social transmission.
• The material products of humans.
• The fact that we can identify clumped sets of
  conventions in groups.
• The fact that such conventions are often highly
  coherent with each other.

50
My favorite

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is COMMON AMONG A GROUP OF MEN
  and which is capable of transmission from
  generation to generation or from one country to
  another.

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is COMMON AMONG A GROUP OF MEN
  and which is capable of transmission from
  generation to generation or from one country to
  another.

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is capable of transmission
  from generation to generation or from one country
  to another.

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is capable of transmission
  from generation to generation or from one country
  to another.

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Bose 1929
• such behavior as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Bose 1929
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Boyd Richerson 1985
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

51
The promise

• By focusing narrowly on the process of social
  transmission of information we can eventually
  explain everything that anthropologists call
  culture.
• The emergence of stable differences
• The clustering of learned traits in local
  populations
• The laws governing change in social evolution
• Therefore, by starting here we can produce a
  causal theory of the phenomena they describe.

52
Social science is a mess

• Evolutionary theory
• Good causal account of historical process
• Little attention to culture
• Little attention to psychology

• Anthropology
• Good description
• Little theory
• Little micro-process

• Psychology
• Attention to micro-processes
• Little culture
• Little evolutionary theory

53
Why does culture need Darwin?

• Remember my favorite definition
• Culture is
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Remember my favorite definition
• Culture is
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Remember my favorite definition
• Culture is
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

54
Why does culture need Darwin?

• capable of transmission
• Culture results from a process of inheritance.
• Darwins theory explains organic populations and
  their features as emerging from a process of
  inheritance

55
Why does culture need Darwin?

• Remember my favorite definition
• Culture is
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Remember my favorite definition
• Culture is
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

• Remember my favorite definition
• Culture is
• such information as is capable of transmission
  from individual to individual.

56
Why does culture need Darwin?

• information
• Culture involves the inheritance of information
  (ideas, beliefs behaviors).
• Darwins theory explains the population-level
  consequences of the inheritance of genetic
  information.

57
Darwins argument

• Natural selection
• If
• (1) Organic traits are heritable from parent to
  offspring.
• (2) Individuals vary in their traits.
• (3) Some traits are better for reproduction.
• Then
• Down the line, every member of the population
  will be descended from those who had the best
  traits.
• Hence, traits that enhance leaving descendants
  become more common.

58
Applied to Culture

• Psychological selection
• If
• (1) cultural traits are heritable from individual
  to individual.
• (2) Individuals vary in their traits.
• (3) Some traits are more attractive to the brain.
• Then
• Traits that are more attractive will get copied
  more, remembered better, and rebroadcast more
  often.
• Hence, attractive cultural traits will become
  more common.

59
What is Darwinism about?

• Darwinian analysis is about explaining the forces
  that effect changes in the distribution of the
  variants in a population.

• Darwinian analysis is about explaining the forces
  that effect changes in the distribution of the
  variants in a population.

• Darwinian analysis is about explaining the forces
  that effect changes in the distribution of the
  variants in a population.
• Such processes are quite general
• not restricted to organic populations.
• But relevant to all populations in which
  information can be inherited (e.g. cultural
  populations).

60
Thus

• POPULATION THINKING

POPULATION THINKING A form of analysis for
populations with the capacity for inheritance
undergoing statistical change.
61
Modern evolutionary theory

• Today we know that organic traits are underlain
  by genes.
• So Darwins argument has been amended to say that
  the genes with the best reproductive consequences
  will become more common.

62
Making the relevant analogies

• In organic evolution
• Unit of transmissionthe gene.
• In cultural evolution
• Analogue of the genethe meme
• (ideas, behaviors, habits, etc., acquired thru
  social learning).

63
Making the relevant analogies

• In organic evolution
• Process of mutationerror in DNA copying.
• In cultural evolution
• Analogue of mutationerror in copying behaviors,
  ideas, etc. (memes)
• ORnew bright or stupid ideas.

64
Making the relevant analogies

• In organic evolution
• Process of natural selectionsome genes reproduce
  more than others
• (the ones that dont reproduce well are weeded
  out).
• In cultural evolution
• Analogue of natural selectionsome memes are more
  attractive than others
• Psychological selection preferred memes get
  copied more, remembered better, rebroadcast more
  often (the others are weeded out)

65
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
Anthropology
Psychology
66
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
Anthropology
Psychology
67
Useless Flow chart
Psychology
68
Psychologys contribution

• The forces that make some memes more attractive
  than others emanate from the human brain.
• Thus we need to understand our psychological
  social-learning biases.

Psychology
69
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
Anthropology
Psychology
70
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
Anthropology
Psychology
71
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
72
Darwinian contribution
Evolutionary theory

• Organic evolutionary theory helps us build models
  of the innate biases that evolved for social
  learning (brain is a biological organ).
• Cultural evolutionary theory helps us build
  models of how such biases will affect the
  historical trajectories of cultural populations.

73
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
Anthropology
Psychology
74
Useless Flow chart
Evolutionary theory
Anthropology
Psychology
75
Anthropologys contribution

• Organic evolutionary theory is impossible without
  natural history.
• Cultural evolutionary theory is similarly
  impossible without ethnography, which provides a
  description of what needs to be explained.

Anthropology
76
The Plan

• We learn Population Thinking (i.e. Darwinian
  habits of thought) in the context of organic
  evolution.
• We learn to apply them to human psychology.
• We learn to apply all of this to the study of
  human culture.

77
Course info

• Syllabus is virtual
• Find it at www.psych.upenn.edu/fjgil/
• Check it often. Things may change.
• You will also find all manner of course-related
  information at that site.
• My email is fjgil_at_psych.upenn.edu

78
Course info

• My office hours will be posted shortly on the
  website.
• There is no TA. . .(I am as sorry about that as
  you)

79
Course info

• The course is divided into 4 parts. You will be
  quizzed for the first three.
• The average of those three quizzes will be your
  midterm grade, and this will be 50 of your
  course grad.
• The 4th part will not be quizzed but the material
  will be folded into the final exam.
• The final is 50 of your course grade.

80
Course info

• DO NOT TAKE NOTES.
• This is not an easy class.
• You need to pay attention.
• The lectures follow my book pretty closely.
• Everything I say in class is in the book.
• AND I will post the lecture slides on the WEB.
• Do not take notes.