Video/Audio
Sky News interview where I discuss the trend of adults moving back home with their parents and how this links to the Cultural Brain Hypothesis, collective brain, and ever extending juvenile periods. [Read More]
Short clip from a recent PBS Documentary on “First Civilizations“. I was the key contributor on the Cities episode. In the full episode, I discuss cultural evolution, cultural-group selection, inequality, and collective brains. Full episode available here. [Read More]
Explaining how cultural evolution, evolutionary biology, and the science of cooperation can shed light on corruption. Based on Muthukrishna, M., Francois, P., Pourahmadi, S., & Henrich, J. (2017). Corrupting Cooperation and How Anti-Corruption Strategies May Backfire. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(0138) [Download] & Muthukrishna, M. (2017). Corruption, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Prosocial Institutions. SSRN Working Paper. [Download] [Read More]
Explaining some of the key points about whale and dolphin behaviour and society live on BBC World News with Matthew Amroliwala based on Fox, K. C. R., Muthukrishna, M. & Shultz, S. (2017). The social and cultural roots of whale and dolphin brains. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1. [Read More] [Download]
Discussing research on whale and dolphin behaviour and society on CBC “The Broadcast” with Jane Adey based on Fox, K. C. R., Muthukrishna, M. & Shultz, S. (2017). The social and cultural roots of whale and dolphin brains. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1. [Read More] [Download]
Discussing research on whale and dolphin behaviour and society on BBC World Service “Science in Action” with Roland Pease based on Fox, K. C. R., Muthukrishna, M. & Shultz, S. (2017). The social and cultural roots of whale and dolphin brains. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1. [Read More] [Download]
Explaining some of the key points about innovation in the collective brain based on Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2016). Innovation in the Collective Brain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1690). [Read More] [Download]
Talk describing the Database of Religious History (DRH) at the 2014 SSHRC Impact Awards in Ottawa, Ontario. [Read More]
Animation describing the vision of the Database of Religious History (DRH). Winner of the 2014 SSHRC Storytellers Competition. [Read More]
Explaining research on how “Sociality influences cultural complexity” to Philip Till at CKNW based on from Muthukrishna, M., Shulman, B. W., Vasilescu, V., & Henrich, J. (2013). Sociality influences cultural complexity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1774). [Read More] [Download]
Images
Graphic produced for Scientific American by Amanda Montañez based on data from Fox, K. C. R., Muthukrishna, M., & Shultz, S. (2017). The social and cultural roots of whale and dolphin brains. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 1, 1699–1705. [Read More] [Download]
Graphic produced by LILA, Harvard based on my talk “Sources of Innovation: The Secret of Human Success”. [Read More]
Graphic produced by LILA, Harvard based on my talk “Sources of Innovation: The Secret of Human Success”. [Read More]
Relationship between sociality (number of speakers) and language efficiency from Muthukrishna, M. & Henrich, J. (2016). Innovation in the Collective Brain. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1690). [Read More] [Download]
Experiment 2 showing difference between access to models on cultural loss and cultural complexity equlibrium from Muthukrishna, M., Shulman, B. W., Vasilescu, V., & Henrich, J. (2013). Sociality influences cultural complexity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1774). [Read More] [Download]
Experiment 1 showing difference between access to models on cultural complexity from Muthukrishna, M., Shulman, B. W., Vasilescu, V., & Henrich, J. (2013). Sociality influences cultural complexity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1774). [Read More] [Download]
Top Tweets
I’m hiring a 3 year post-doc. Well paid. To riff on @rlmcelreath, I care more about mad skills and less about long pub lists. You can be from anywhere in the world and from any field. Drop me an email if you have any questions. Please retweet. #AcademicJob https://t.co/s4kOtU7NKg pic.twitter.com/zLmGhJCfAQ
— Michael Muthukrishna (@mmuthukrishna) April 6, 2018
Imagine if you could redesign your #Psychology #undergraduate in light of all that we now know. The Replication Crisis. The WEIRD People Problem. #OpenScience. Imagine if you could train the next generation of psychologists in better theory, better methods, better statistics. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/VsN0bhdPNp
— Michael Muthukrishna (@mmuthukrishna) March 12, 2018
#CORRUPTION through the lens of #cooperation and cultural evolution. Full 5 minute video here: https://t.co/VeATlyljXF
Based on @NatureHumBehav, @EvonomicsMag, @ProMarket_org papers.https://t.co/XciIpDcJkWhttps://t.co/z8tgtzmlAJhttps://t.co/t6ztOvIZe4https://t.co/1HM0NVItkR pic.twitter.com/GwS29TORji
— Michael Muthukrishna (@mmuthukrishna) March 14, 2018
Isn’t it WEIRD to think not every society sees what you’re seeing here? #WEIRDpeople #illusion https://t.co/My5VfweFJ9
— Michael Muthukrishna (@mmuthukrishna) March 11, 2018
Press Releases
Whales and dolphins have rich ‘human-like’ cultures and societies
Whales and dolphins (Cetaceans) live in tightly-knit social groups, have complex relationships, talk to each other and even have regional dialects – much like human societies.
A major new study, published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution (Monday 16th October), has linked the complexity of Cetacean culture and behaviour to the size of their brains.
The research was a collaboration between scientists at The University of Manchester, The University of British Columbia, Canada, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Stanford University, United States.
The study is first of its kind to create a large dataset of cetacean brain size and social behaviours. The team compiled information on 90 different species of dolphins, whales, and porpoises. It found overwhelming evidence that Cetaceans have sophisticated social and cooperative behaviour traits, similar to many found in human culture. The study demonstrates that these societal and cultural characteristics are linked with brain size and brain expansion – also known as encephalisation. [read more=”EXPAND” less=”COLLAPSE”]
The long list of behavioural similarities includes many traits shared with humans and other primates such as:
- complex alliance relationships – working together for mutual benefit
- social transfer of hunting techniques – teaching how to hunt and using tools
- cooperative hunting
- complex vocalizations, including regional group dialects – ‘talking’ to each other
- vocal mimicry and ‘signature whistles’ unique to individuals – using ‘name’ recognition
- interspecific cooperation with humans and other species – working with different species
- alloparenting – looking after youngsters that aren’t their own
- social play
Dr Susanne Shultz, an evolutionary biologist in Manchester’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: “As humans, our ability to socially interact and cultivate relationships has allowed us to colonise almost every ecosystem and environment on the planet. We know whales and dolphins also have exceptionally large and anatomically sophisticated brains and, therefore, have created a similar marine based culture.
“That means the apparent co-evolution of brains, social structure, and behavioural richness of marine mammals provides a unique and striking parallel to the large brains and hyper-sociality of humans and other primates on land. Unfortunately, they won’t ever mimic our great metropolises and technologies because they didn’t evolve opposable thumbs.”
The team used the dataset to test the social brain hypothesis (SBH) and cultural brain hypothesis (CBH). The SBH and CBH are evolutionary theories originally developed to explain large brains in primates and land mammals.
They argue that large brains are an evolutionary response to complex and information-rich social environments. However, this is the first time these hypotheses have been applied to ‘intelligent’ marine mammals on such a large scale.
Dr Michael Muthukrishna, Assistant Professor of Economic Psychology at LSE, added: “This research isn’t just about looking at the intelligence of whales and dolphins, it also has important anthropological ramifications as well. In order to move toward a more general theory of human behaviour, we need to understand what makes humans so different from other animals. And to do this, we need a control group. Compared to primates, cetaceans are a more “alien” control group.”
Dr Kieran Fox, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, added: “Cetaceans have many complex social behaviours that are similar to humans and other primates. They, however, have different brain structures from us, leading some researchers to argue that whales and dolphins could not achieve higher cognitive and social skills. I think our research shows that this is clearly not the case. Instead, a new question emerges: How can very diverse patterns of brain structure in very different species nonetheless give rise to highly similar cognitive and social behaviours?”
[/read]
Reference: ‘The social and cultural roots of whale and dolphin brains’, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0336-y
When less is best
http://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Research-Highlights/World-regions-and-development/When-less-is-best
Behind the article
Winners of 2016 CGS/ProQuest® Distinguished Dissertation Awards Announced
WASHINGTON, DC, December 8, 2016 – The Council of Graduate Schools / ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards, the nation’s most prestigious honors for doctoral dissertations, were presented to Scott Cushing and Michael Muthukrishna at an awards ceremony during the Council’s 56th Annual Meeting. Dr. Cushing completed his PhD in 2015 at West Virginia University in Physics, and Dr. Muthukrishna received his PhD in 2015 from the University of British Columbia in Psychology.
[read more=”EXPAND” less=”COLLAPSE”]
Bestowed annually since 1982, the awards recognize recent doctoral recipients who have already made unusually significant and original contributions to their fields. ProQuest, an international leader in dissertation archiving, discovery, and access, sponsors the awards and an independent committee from the Council of Graduate Schools selects the winners. Two awards are given each year, rotating among four general areas of scholarship. The winners receive a certificate, a $2,000 honorarium, and funds for travel to the awards ceremony.
“The Distinguished Dissertation Awards demonstrate the dramatic impact young scholars have on their fields,” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega. “It’s a testament to the vitality and value of graduate education when recently minted PhDs contribute and expand upon knowledge to raise the level of understanding in their fields.”
Austin McLean, Director, ProQuest Scholarly Communication and Dissertations Publishing said, “ProQuest is passionate about the impact dissertations make in advancing both research and learning through their fresh insights and innovative thinking. Dr. Cushing and Dr. Muthukrishna have produced works that will be of tremendous value for generations to come. We’re very proud to partner with CGS in honoring them.”
The 2016 Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering was presented to Dr. Cushing for his dissertation, Plasmonic Enhancement Mechanisms in Solar Energy Harvesting. Plasmonics, the study of the interaction between electromagnetic field and free electrons in a metal, appear to offer advancement in the efficiencies of solar energy conversion. Cushing’s thesis investigates why plasmonics rarely appear in top performing solar architectures given their potential. Using his findings, Cushing developed a theoretical framework to optimize the application of plasmonics in solar energy conversion. Cushing notes that, “Based on this framework, several top performing solar-to-fuel devices were created which use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Additionally, the developed plasmonics technology is being incorporated into a commercial photovoltaic panel for turning sunlight into electricity.” Dr. Cushing is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Leone Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Muthukrishna received the 2016 Award in Social Sciences for his dissertation, The Cultural Brain Hypothesis and the Transmission and Evolution of Culture. His project introduced two theories: the Cultural Brain Hypothesis and the Cumulative Cultural Brain Hypothesis. The first theory “explains the increase in brain size across taxonomic groups. In doing so, the theory makes predications about the relationships between brain size, knowledge, group size, social learning, and the length of the juvenile period, which are consistent with existing empirical literature.” The second theory, Cumulative Cultural Brain Hypothesis, makes predications about the conditions under which these evolutionary processes lead to a positive feedback loop between brain size and knowledge. Muthukrishna argues that these conditions are the key to what makes the human pathway unique and explains various aspects of our psychology and our large brains. Dr. Muthukrishna is currently an assistant professor of economic psychology at the London School of Economics.
More information about the CGS / ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award is available at www.proquest.com/go/scholars or at www.cgsnet.org.
[/read]
Our collective genius and why we are all getting smarter
http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2016/02/OurCollectiveGenius.aspx
New ideas and technologies are not the product of a few far-sighted geniuses but arise through societies and social networks acting as ‘collective brains’, says new research from LSE and Harvard University.
The paper, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, argues that, over evolutionary time, individuals who mimicked other successful individuals – eating the foods they ate or hunting with the tools they used, for example – became successful themselves without necessarily understanding why. Over time, innovations emerged through the mixing of ideas, serendipity and incremental improvement. These accumulated over generations and were similarly passed on as ‘cultural knowledge’ leading to the complex world we live in today.
[read more=”EXPAND” less=”COLLAPSE”]
Dr Michael Muthukrishna, assistant professor at LSE and lead author of the research, explains: “The processes of cumulative cultural evolution allow technologies and techniques to emerge, which no single individual could create on their own – because human brains, in isolation, aren’t actually all that smart.
“We can see this process at work when two people have the same apparently innovative idea at the same time – such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace with the theory of natural selection. Rather than being heroic geniuses, Darwin and Wallace were in the same ‘cultural milieu’, both reading the same books and both travelling to biologically diverse island environments.”
While individual abilities vary, collective brains make each brain within it cleverer. The theory helps explain why there have been dramatic increases in IQ test scores over time.
Dr Muthukrishna, and his co-author, Professor Joseph Henrich from Harvard University, argue that the rate of innovation in a society is heavily influenced by:
- Sociality Larger, more interconnected societies – where individuals are able to mix with people with diverse backgrounds – mean that more ideas are likely to emerge and interact with other ideas
- Transmission fidelity Mechanisms such as books, formal schooling and online courses, allow existing knowledge to be transmitted accurately so it can be ‘built upon’
- Tolerance for deviation Societies which lower the risk for people trying something new help promote innovation. This includes having bankruptcy laws and good social safety nets which allow people to recover in the event of failure. Most entrepreneurs fail, but the few that do succeed cover the costs of supporting the rest.
Dr Muthukrishna explains: “To be an innovator, it’s better to be social rather than smart. There’s no doubt that there are variations in people’s raw skills, but what predicts the difference between a Steve Jobs and a Joe Bloggs is actually their exposure to new ideas that are wonderful and different.
“If you want to be more creative the best thing you can do is to talk to people who disagree with you.”
The researchers present a new evolutionary model of cultural evolution and connect it to research on innovation and intelligence. They conducted an original statistical analysis showing that the processes underlying innovation have also shaped innovations within languages.
[/read]
Majority rule: why conformity can actually be a good thing
http://news.ubc.ca/2015/07/28/majority-rule-why-conformity-can-actually-be-a-good-thing/
Like to go your own way? Most of us actually prefer to follow the pack, according to UBC research.
That’s one of the outcomes from a study published in Evolution and Human Behavior that examines how mathematical models predict human behaviour.
The research tested theories about when people should rely on “social information” – information that we learn vicariously from others – and when we should choose to go it alone.
“People are conformist – and that’s a good thing for cultural evolution,” said Michael Muthukrishna, a Vanier and Liu Scholar and recent PhD recipient from UBC’s department of psychology. “By being conformist, we copy the things that are popular in the world. And those things are often good and useful.”
[read more=”EXPAND” less=”COLLAPSE”]
For example, most people don’t understand how germs can cause disease – but they know they should wash their hands after using the bathroom. “Our whole world is made up of things that we do that are good for us, but we don’t know why,” said Muthukrishna. “And we don’t need to know why. We just need to know that most people do those things.”
The research also found that people with higher IQs don’t follow the pack as much as others – but when they do, they do so more strategically. In other words, smarter people tend to take their own path most of the time, because they think they have the correct answer. When they’re unsure, however, they are more willing than those with average IQs to follow the majority.
In addition, the more diversity there is in behaviour, the more likely people are to copy the majority. As the number of available options increases, this creates more uncertainty – and in such circumstances, a majority sends an even stronger signal.
“These mathematical theories and experiments contribute to a greater understanding of what it is that makes our species so unique – culture,” said Muthukrishna. “Our smarts are acquired, not hardwired.”
BACKGROUND
The study, “The when and who of social learning and conformist transmission,” is published in Evolution and Human Behavior. Muthukrishna’s co-authors are Thomas Morgan from the University of California, Berkeley and Joseph Henrich from UBC and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
The study involved 101 participants, recruited from the UBC student population and the general population. They took part in two experiments; both involved a perceptual task comparing differing amounts of lines, with the purpose of identifying the longest line. In both experiments, participants were made aware of others’ choices; the second experiment also featured random computer-generated answers. Both experiments included pay incentives, which were based on performance.
[/read]