Idea Habitats: How the Prevalence of Environmental Cues Influences the Success of Ideas

We investigate 1 factor that influences the success of ideas or cultural representations by proposing that they have a habitat, that is, a set of environmental cues that encourages people to recall and transmit them. We test 2 hypotheses: (a) fluctuation: the success of an idea will vary over time with fluctuations in its habitat, and (b) competition: ideas with more prevalent habitats will be more successful. Four studies use subject ratings and data from newspapers to provide correlational support for our 2 hypotheses, with a negative factoid, positive rumor, catchphrases, and variants of a proverb. Three additional experimental studies manipulate the topic of actual conversations and find empirical support for our theory, with catchphrases, proverbs, and slang. The discussion examines how habitat prevalence applies to a more extensive class of ideas and suggests how habitats may influence the process by which ideas evolve.

[1]  N. Roese,et al.  What Might Have Been: The Social Psychology of Counterfactual Thinking , 1995 .

[2]  Archer S. Taylor,et al.  The Proverb and an Index to the Proverb , 1964 .

[3]  J. A. McGeoch.  Forgetting and the law of disuse. , 1932 .

[4]  C. Lumsden.  Culture and the Evolutionary Process, Robert Boyd, Peter J. Richerson. University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London (1985), viii, +301. Price $29.95 , 1986 .

[5]  Ustin,et al.  Spreading Non-natural Concepts : The Role of Intuitive Conceptual Structures in Memory and Transmission of Cultural Materials ¤ , 2004 .

[6]  G. Miller,et al.  Cognitive science. , 1981, Science.

[7]  Ann Swidler.  CULTURE IN ACTION: SYMBOLS AND STRATEGIES* , 1986 .

[8]  Ralph Keyes.  "Nice Guys Finish Seventh": False Phrases, Spurious Sayings, and Familiar Misquotations , 1992 .

[9]  Stephen J. Hoch,et al.  Low-Involvement Learning: Memory without Evaluation , 1992 .

[10]  A. Norenzayan,et al.  Cognitive and Emotional Processes in the Cultural Transmission of Natural and Nonnatural Beliefs , 2003 .

[11]  John R. Anderson,et al.  Learning and Memory: An Integrated Approach , 1994 .

[12]  W. Estes.  Statistical theory of spontaneous recovery and regression. , 1955, Psychological review.

[13]  R. Shiffrin,et al.  A retrieval model for both recognition and recall. , 1984, Psychological review.

[14]  John R. Anderson,et al.  Reflections of the Environment in Memory Form of the Memory Functions , 2022 .

[15]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Counterfactual Thought, Regret, and Superstition: How to Avoid Kicking Yourself , 1995 .

[16]  D. Sperber,et al.  Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach , 1998 .

[17]  R. Lewontin.  ‘The Selfish Gene’ , 1977, Nature.

[18]  E. Brunswik,et al.  Distal focussing of perception: Size-constancy in a representative sample of situations. , 1944 .

[19]  T. Shibutani.  Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor , 1966 .

[20]  Frank C. Keil,et al.  The More Things Change ...: Metamorphoses and Conceptual Structure , 1985, Cogn. Sci..

[21]  G. Richards.  The more things change... , 1986, The American journal of nursing.

[22]  C. Chiu,et al.  Multicultural minds. A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[23]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Fault trees: Sensitivity of estimated failure probabilities to problem representation. , 1978 .

[24]  J. Barrett,et al.  Spreading Non-natural Concepts: The Role of Intuitive Conceptual Structures in Memory and Transmission of Cultural Materials ¤ , 2001 .

[25]  R. Nisbett,et al.  Culture and Cognition , 2002 .

[26]  P. Todd,et al.  Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart , 1999 .

[27]  R. Bauman,et al.  Verbal Art as Performance , 1984 .

[28]  Jan Harold Brunvand,et al.  American folklore : an encyclopedia , 2006 .

[29]  T. Chartrand,et al.  THE UNBEARABLE AUTOMATICITY OF BEING , 1999 .

[30]  E. Tulving,et al.  Retroactive inhibition in free recall: Inaccessibility of information available in the memory store , 1971 .

[31]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[32]  R. H. Knapp,et al.  A PSYCHOLOGY OF RUMOR , 1944 .

[33]  D. Rubin.  Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes , 1995 .

[34]  E. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 1962 .

[35]  D. Dennett,et al.  Darwinizing culture : the status of memetics as a science , 2001 .

[36]  Brian F. Bowdle,et al.  Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: an "experimental ethnography". , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[37]  E. Rogers,et al.  Diffusion of innovations , 1964, Encyclopedia of Sport Management.

[38]  Pascal Boyer,et al.  Cognitive templates for religious concepts: cross-cultural evidence for recall of counter-intuitive representations , 2001, Cogn. Sci..

[39]  A. Tversky,et al.  The simulation heuristic , 1982 .

[40]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Fault Trees: Sensitivity of Estimated Failure Probabilities to Problem Representation , 2005 .

[41]  Lucian Gideon Conway,et al.  Selective pressures on the once and future contents of ethnic stereotypes: effects of the communicability of traits. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  Steve Vinoski,et al.  Toward Integration The More Things Change , 2001 .

[43]  Flemming G. Andersen,et al.  David C. Rubin. Memory in Oral Traditions. The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes , 1997 .

[44]  Michael W. Morris,et al.  Reasons as Carriers of Culture: Dynamic vs. Dispositional Models of Cultural Influence on Decision Making. Рассуждения как носители культуры: динамическая и диспозитная модели культурного влияния на принятие решений , 2000 .