Teaching

Research in Cultural Evolution (Harvard University, HEB 126), Spring 2025

Cultural evolution researchers leverage a rich set of interdisciplinary methods to answer questions about the nature of the human mind; the evolution of cultural practices; and the relationship between culture, psychology, and behavior. This seminar introduces students to a broad range of cultural evolution research methods, drawing from anthropology, psychology, economics, and other quantitative social sciences. Each week, we tackle a different method, including ethnography, surveys, experiments, secondary data, text analysis, and formal modeling. In class, students build their understanding and skills as evolutionary social scientists through a combination of empirical paper discussions and hands-on activities. The culminating assignment is a research proposal which challenges students to design a study to test a cultural evolutionary hypothesis. Syllabus

Human Nature (Harvard University, GenEd 1056), Fall 2024
Co-taught with Joe Henrich

What makes us psychologically and behaviorally human? Why is this important? In what ways are humans similar to other species, and how are we different? What are the evolutionary origins of the behavioral and psychological features found across human societies, including parental love, sibling rivalry, pair-bonding, incest aversion, social status, war, norms, altruism, religion, language and cooking? At the same time, how can we account for the immense diversity we observe in behavior and psychology across time and societies? Tackling these questions within a broad evolutionary framework, the course will draw on the latest insights and evidence from evolutionary biology, primatology, anthropological ethnography, neuroscience, genetics, linguistics, economics and psychology. We’ll contextualize contemporary behavior by examining studies of non-human primates, especially chimpanzees, and a broad range of human variation based on comparative studies of hunter-gatherers, herders, agriculturalists and—most unusual of all—people from societies that are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic). Along the way, we’ll see how culture has driven much of our genetic evolution and runs deep into our evolutionary history. We’ll consider how understanding the evolutionary origins of human behavior, psychology, and culture informs how we approach contemporary issues such as patriarchy, polygamous marriage, sex differences, child abuse, mating preferences, homosexuality, racism, psychological differences among populations and the use of oral contraceptives. Syllabus

Genes, Minds, & Culture (Harvard Pre-College Program, BIOS P-13531), Summer 2021, 2022, 2023

Why do people around the world cook with chili peppers, even though humans don’t naturally like spiciness? Why can certain populations drink milk into adulthood, while others develop lactose intolerance? Why are the inhabitants of some nations so much more self-oriented than others? In answering these questions and others, this course introduces students to the exciting new field of cultural evolution. In the first part of the course, we explore the ways in which culture has shaped the trajectory of human genetic evolution, making our bodies and minds what they are today. In the second part of the course, we use a cultural evolutionary framework to examine how diverse cultural traits related to kinship systems, religions, economic markets, subsistence strategies, and languages create striking non-genetic variation in how people think and behave. Throughout, we learn how cultural practices arise, spread, and change, engaging with research from psychology, anthropology, and economics. In addition, we consider important themes like economic development, gender equity, and the trajectory of our own society through a cultural evolutionary lens. Students learn how to read and analyze empirical scientific publications and develop their oral and written communication skills through discussions, presentations, and short papers.