The Cultural Evolution Society Invites Applications for Research Funding

The Cultural Evolution Society is running a funding scheme called Transforming the Field of Cultural Evolution and its Application to Global Human Futures, thanks to a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

 

The scheme aims to transform the important, yet underfunded, field of cultural evolution. How our cultures evolve (including how information is transmitted, how people make decisions, and the interaction of culture with our biology) is a pressing issue in a world in which our cultural activities are causing rapid, and drastic, social and physical changes.

 

Through the scheme, the Cultural Evolution Society aims to tackle several issues:

  1. The ever-increasing obstacles to success that early career academics face – this will be redressed through funding, mentoring and training opportunities.
  2. Western-centrism, i.e. the tendency of research to focus far too much on the West and for only Western researchers to receive funding – researchers from countries outside of Northern America and Western Europe are especially encouraged to apply to this scheme.
  3. Disciplinary divides (for example between psychologists and anthropologists or physicists and historians) that hamper research progress.
  4. The gap between scientists and public policy makers – dedicated support is available to help communicate research activities to relevant contacts, in order to enable society as a whole to benefit from research in cultural evolution. Policy makers rarely draw on an explicit scientific theory of cultural change, and in contrast, the sciences often investigate what needs to be changed but invest less in how this may be achieved.

 

 

Research projects 

The funding competition will fund 16 Research Projects in four broad areas. There is more detail regarding these themes on the website but in summary:

1. Variation in creativity and imagination (both across cultures and between species) and the impact this has on the evolution of our technology, as well as art, music, language and religion. We may also understand the influence of cultural norms and different educational practices on creativity throughout the life-time.

 

2. Cultural influences on access to ‘reality’ (or our rationality). When we think of rational thought, we often consider processes based on an evaluation of objective facts rather than supernatural beliefs or emotions. However, recent theories in many diverse disciplines have focused on human ‘irrationality’ and how this may be ‘sensible’ as we live in a world of uncertainty where logic is not a perfect guide. Investigating how cultural beliefs influence our perceived realities and ability to imagine future ones, as well as investigations of how, or why, we transmit so-called ‘fake news’ are important avenues of research.

 

3.  The impact of globalization on cultures. We live in an ever more interdependent world, the current and future implications of which are ripe for investigation through a cultural evolutionary lens. For example, the effects of the hyper-availability of online information to enormous global audiences, and the novel features of digital information transmission, are only recently being investigated. Globalization also poses inherent risks, especially as we increasingly face cooperative dilemmas on an unprecedented global scale (e.g. climate change, pandemics). Likewise, it is also possible that the merging of humanity into a single “effective population” will erase cultural variation with negative impacts on knowledge diversity and our ability to adapt to new challenges.

 

4. Applying cultural evolution to enhance human futures. How cultural evolutionary insights can be used for positive change was identified as one of the ‘grand challenges’ in the field of cultural evolution. One key example is that an understanding of cultural transmission, and the various biases in when and whom individuals learn from, may be used to enhance the spread of desired behaviours. In principle, understanding of these processes could aid in the current Covid-19 health workers’ ‘war’ against misinformation. More generally, cultural evolution could inform ‘Behavioural Insights’ ‘or ‘nudge’ theories used by institutions globally in an attempt to improve public policy.

 

Applied Working Groups 

Alongside the funding of the research grants, there is also a competition to fund Applied Working Groups. These will be designed by the applicants, to implement cultural evolution with real impact on, for example, policy (e.g. public health, education), politics, business, climate change, conservation and welfare. The workshops should include conversations between academics and relevant non-academics to disseminate cultural evolution insights to the general public and engage policy makers in using cultural evolution to help solve current and future real-world problems.

At the end of 2024, there will be a conference in Durham (UK), where the findings from all of the research projects and working groups will be presented to scientists, policy makers and the general public.

The application deadline is 5th January 2022, and there will be a pre-application workshop in early November 2021. Details of the scheme are available here, and you can also find out more on the following social media accounts:

 

https://twitter.com/CultEvolFunding

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cultural-evolution-funding

https://www.facebook.com/CultEvolFunding

 

For any questions, please email our grant manager Lorna Winship in the first instance: ces.transformationfund@durham.ac.uk.

Student and ECR Subsidies for EP Preconference at SPSP

HBES is sponsoring registration subsidies for the Evolutionary Psychology Preconference at SPSP 2022! Limited subsidies are available to cover preconference registration costs for some students and early career researchers with financial hardships. Apply by Nov-15! For details and how to apply, see the preconference website: https://ep2022.mystrikingly.com

Questions? Reach out to one of the preconference organizers:  Will McAuliffe (williamhbmcauliffe@gmail.com); Juliana French (juliana.french@okstate.edu); Michael Barlev (MLBarlev@gmail.com)

HBES Awards 2019 – Call for Nominations

The HBES Early Career Award

The HBES Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution recognizes excellent young scientists who have made distinguished theoretical and/or empirical contributions to the study of evolution and human behavior. The nomination letter should include the following information:

  • What are the general themes of the nominee’s major lines of research?
  • What are the important research findings discovered by the nominee?
  • To what extent have the nominee’s contributions generated research in the field?

Nominations for the HBES Early Career Award should include a statement about the worthiness of the nominee, curriculum vita of the nominee, a recent complete bibliography, and no more than five reprints representative of the nominee’s contributions. Please note: The award is subject to the following limitation: The nominee must be no more than 10 years post-Ph.D.

Nominations should be submitted online at https://www.hbes.com/nominations/ by 1 April 2019.


The HBES Lifetime Career Award

Nominations are open for the HBES Lifetime Career award. If you wish to nominate someone, please follow these guidelines. Nominations for these awards should include a letter of nomination, a curriculum vita, a recent complete bibliography, up to five representative reprints and the names and addresses of several scientists familiar with the nominee’s work.

  • What has been the significant and enduring influence of the nominee’s research?
  • What historical contribution has the nominee’s research made to the field?
  • Compare the nominee with others in her/his field.
  • What influence has the nominee had on students and others in the same field of study?
  • Where possible, please identify the nominee’s students by name.

Nominations should be submitted online at https://www.hbes.com/nominations/ by 1 April 2019.

HBES Awards Call for Nominations

Member email sent 2 March 2018: Read more

Now accepting nominations for the HBES Early Career Award (due April 14)

The HBES Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution recognizes excellent young scientists who have made distinguished theoretical and/or empirical contributions to the study of evolution and human behavior. The nomination letter should include the following information:

  • What are the general themes of the nominee’s major lines of research?
  • What are the important research findings discovered by the nominee?
  • To what extent have the nominee’s contributions generated research in the field?

Nominations for the HBES Early Career Award should include a statement about the worthiness of the nominee, curriculum vita of the nominee, a recent complete bibliography, and no more than five reprints representative of the nominee’s contributions. Please note: The award is subject to the following limitation: The nominee must be no more than 10 years post-Ph.D.

Nominations are due to president@hbes.com by 14 April 2018.

Now accepting nominations for the HBES Lifetime Career Award (due April 14)

Nominations are open for the HBES Lifetime Career award. If you wish to nominate someone, please follow these guidelines. Nominations for these awards should include a letter of nomination, a curriculum vita, a recent complete bibliography, up to five representative reprints and the names and addresses of several scientists familiar with the nominee’s work.

  • What has been the significant and enduring influence of the nominee’s research?
  • What historical contribution has the nominee’s research made to the field?
  • Compare the nominee with others in her/his field.
  • What influence has the nominee had on students and others in the same field of study?
  • Where possible, please identify the nominee’s students by name.

Nominations are due to president@hbes.com by 14 April 2018.

HBES Fellows

We are happy to announce the introduction of HBES Fellows to recognize those members who have made substantial contributions to the Society in service and scholarship over the course of their career. Criteria and nomination procedures (due May 1st) are described below.

Read more

Margo Wilson Award Runners Up (now open access)

As announced at the conference in Boise, the decision regarding the Margo Wilson Award for this year was a very difficult one. Here are three runners up for this award, all of which have now been made open access through the ehbonline web site. Congratulations to all of these authors!

Gangestad, S. W., Haselton, M. G., Welling, L. L., Gildersleeve, K., Pillsworth, E. G., Burriss, R. P., Larson, C. M., & Puts, D. A. (2016). How valid are assessments of conception probability in ovulatory cycle research? Evaluations, recommendations, and theoretical implications. Evolution and Human Behavior37(2), 85-96. [pdf]

Ross, C. T., Mulder, M. B., Winterhalder, B., Uehara, R., Headland, J., & Headland, T. (2016). Evidence for quantity–quality trade-offs, sex-specific parental investment, and variance compensation in colonized Agta foragers undergoing demographic transition. Evolution and Human Behavior37(5), 350-365. [pdf]

Syme, K. L., Garfield, Z. H., & Hagen, E. H. (2016). Testing the bargaining vs. inclusive fitness models of suicidal behavior against the ethnographic record. Evolution and Human Behavior, 37(3), 179-192. [pdf]

Rob Kurzban, Editor-in-Chief, E&HB

HBES Award Nominations Open

Nominations are now open for the HBES Lifetime Career and Early Career awards.  If you wish to nominate someone, please follow the guidelines on the relevant link above and send materials by May 1, 2016, to Elizabeth Cashdan at ecashdan@gmail.com.