Ecological influences on human behavioural diversity: a review of recent findings
Open accessAbstract
Human societies are remarkably variable in terms of their size, complexity, social structure, marriage systems and norms. This diversity has sometimes been raised as an obstacle to taking an evolutionary approach to human behaviour. However, a substantial proportion of the variation between human societies might represent local adaptation to ecological conditions and would thus be very much amenable to evolutionary explanation. I review recent studies correlating inter-population differences in humans with ecological factors, specifically pathogen prevalence. Many questions remain unanswered, such as whether we correctly understand the causal pathways and what the mechanisms producing local adaptation are, but the strength of correlations between social and ecological parameters is striking.
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The use of contemporary nation-states as units of analysis creates nontrivial inferential issues.
“However, nontrivial inferential issues arise from the use of contemporary nation-states as units of analysis [30].”
From Pathogens and Politics: Further Evidence That Parasite Prevalence Predicts Authoritarianism (2013) · cites this paper as [30]
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Analysing the Learning Commons in the Digital Age
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- Authors
- Nettle, D.
- Affiliations
- Newcastle University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Nettle, Daniel
- ORCID
- Nettle, Daniel
- Venue
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-11
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 618-624
- ISSN
- 0169-5347 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2157153511
- Cited by
- 95
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 8.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Newcastle University ePrints (Newcastle Univesity)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- local adaptation, pathogen prevalence, inter-population variation, social complexity, marriage system, social norms, social structure
- MeSH terms
- Anthropology, Cultural, Communicable Diseases, Biological Evolution, Humans, Social Behavior, Ecosystem
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