Wednesday, November 20, 2013

What Cetaceans Can Teach Us About Culture

A bottlenose dolphin mother shares her culture with
her offspring. Image by M. Herko at the National
Undersea Research Program (NURP) available
at Wikimedia Commons.
We often think of culture as being food dishes, music, dance, and clothing that are specific to a group of people. But are we the only species that have culture? What is culture exactly and how does it relate to relationships?

Scientifically, culture is behavior that is socially transmitted between individuals and shared within population groups. Culture fundamentally depends on learning, and specifically learning from others. But everyone doesn't learn equally from everyone else. We tend to pick up behaviors more from individuals that we spend more time with than those that we don't. We also tend to spend more time with individuals that we share behaviors with. And we're not the only ones to show these tendencies.


This week at Accumulating Glitches I talk about various ways whales and dolphins share culture and are influenced by it. Check it out here.


And to learn more, check these out:

Cantor, M., & Whitehead, H. (2013). The interplay between social networks and culture: theoretically and among whales and dolphins Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (368), 1-8 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0340

And learn about how orcas share dialects here.




1 comment:

  1. Vampires is not at all like in the movies or books. Sure, You can have the whole world open to you. You can be anything that you choose if you apply yourself and try hard to work toward that goal. But being a Vampire is not what it seems like. It’s a life full of good, and amazing things. We are as human as you are.. It’s not what you are that counts, But how you choose to be. Do you want a life full of interesting things? Do you want to have power and influence over others? To be charming and desirable? To have wealth, health, and longevity, I can help you solve any problem you are having
    (1) If you want your ex back.
    (2) If you want to stop having bad dreams.
    (3) You want to be promoted in your office.
    (4) You want women/men to run after you.
    (5) If you want a child.
    (6) You want to be rich.
    (7) You want to tie your husband/wife to be yours forever.
    (8) If you need financial assistance.
    (9) If you want to stop your divorce.
    (10 If you want to divorce your husband.
    (11) If you want your wishes to be granted.
    contact: Vampirelord7878@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete