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Research group Centre for Cultural Evolution

The Centre for Cultural Evolution conducts interdisciplinary research on the causal relationships that shape and change human culture in both the long and the short term.

Centre for Cultural Evolution in pictures

Cultural evolution is not a label for a particular theory but a unifying field for interdisciplinary research on cultural emergence and change. Human culture is continuously changing, displays a stunning diversity and is present in most aspects of human life. The term ‘culture’ refers to its broadest meaning, including all phenomena that to some extent depend on social transmission, such as language, religion, laws, politics, technology, or art.

Our vision is to maintain an internationally competitive scientific environment where scientists and students in the humanities, natural and social sciences and mathematics can work together and mutually benefit from each other’s knowledge and methods. The Centre for Cultural Evolution engages in and runs projects together with researchers and departments both within Stockholm University and in international collaborations.

The Centre for Cultural Evolution works on breaking up the divide between humanities, natural and social sciences, and also between different disciplines and research programmes within the areas. Our view is that the division between natural science and the humanities is artifical and unjustified for the study of culture, and that different disciplines can vitalise each other.

Scientific progress is often the result of strong interaction between data and theory. Empirical data gives inspiration and takes out a direction for theoretical work, which in turn needs to be evaluated by further empirical work. Mathematics is an important tool for theoretical work, to formalise ideas and theories, evaluate logical consequences and generate testable hypotheses. At the Centre for Cultural Evolution, theoretical, mathematical and empirical approaches and angles exist in parallel from a broad variety of disciplines.

The Stockholm School

The Stockholm School is a modern direction of research in cultural evolution distinctive in seeking minimalist explanations of the emergence of complex culture and cognition. The focus is on how culture is driving its own evolution.

Presentation of the Stockholm School

Courses in cultural evolution

We organize two online Master's courses in cultural evolution. These courses aim at tearing down barriers between disciplines. We welcome students from the humanities as well as the social and natural sciences. The courses introduce theory on cultural change from different subjects and shows how methods like computational modelling and experiments can be applied to understand human and social phenomena.

Cultural evolution: theories and observations, 7,5 credits

Cultural evolution: project, 7,5 credits