Causes with direct and immediate relations with their effects.

Replicators for biological evolution.

Fictional stories that are told in modern societies as though they are true.

Evolutionary process whereby individuals best suited to attract the healthiest mate will most likely have surviving offspring.

The feeling of how satisfied one is with one's life.

People learn about particular cultural practices through social learning or by modeling others who live near them.

Relative stability and long duration.

A perspective on cultural evolution that contends there is no direct replication of ideas, but that each individual creates his or her own representation of the idea.

This process occurs when certain genes become more common in a population that they were in the past.

A term for cultures with many practices, institutions, and customs encouraging individuals to place relatively more emphasis on collective ones than individual ones.

Causes with initial differences that lead to effects over long periods, often through indirect relationships.

Smallest units of cultural information that can be faithfully transmitted.

Ideas that violate our expectations enough to be surprising or unusual, but not too outlandish.

Evolutionary process that occurs when there is individual variability among members of a species on certain traits, those traits are associated with different survival rates and have a hereditary basis.

A term for cultures with many practices and customs encouraging individuals to prioritize their own personal goals ahead of collective goals and to emphasize the ways in which they are distinct from others.

All people have certain biologically encoded behavioral repertoires that are potentially accessible to them, and are engaged when appropriate situational conditions are present.

The ability to produce many copies.

A theory suggesting that individuals influence each other through their interactions, which gives rise to clusters of like-minded people separated by geography.

Necessary parts of evolution, that provide the variety of potential genes that allow for differential selection.

The tendency for people to collectively misinterpret the thoughts that underlie other people's behaviors.

The geography where people live, along with diets and foraging behaviors can affect culture.

The high level of accuracy in self-replicating or reproducing.

Occurrence when very minute differences at the beginning of a process can lead to larger effects later on.

Response caused by the involuntary saccadic movements of our eyes which, in the dark, creates the illusion of movement.

Process of interaction and integration of people, companies, and government amongst different nations, driven by trade and technology.