This pre-registered replication study explores the impact of perceived cuteness on the evolution of cultural artifacts, testing whether neotenic traits – eye size, forehead height, and head roundness – have increased in teddy bears over time. In previous research, Hinde & Barden (1980) found an increase in teddy bear neoteny while Gould (1985) found that Mickey Mouse’s features became more neotenic with time. However, both studies lacked statistical power (15 teddy bears and 3 Mickey Mouse drawings). We collected data from (...) eight major teddy bear manufacturers over nine decades (N = 250; 1900–1980). We found that the forehead height of teddy bears significantly increased over time. Conversely, our prediction that heads became rounder and eyes became bigger were not supported. We outline four key methodological limitations that future research should address to deepen our understanding of the cultural evolution of cuteness and of cultural artifacts more broadly – i.e., sampling bias, metadata inaccuracy, categorization ambiguity, and function ambiguity. (shrink)

This work intended to analyse how Chinese people who have different degrees of exposure to Portuguese language make affective assessments of the emotional dimensions of audio stimuli in both Mandarin Chinese and European Portuguese. A sample of 23 native Chinese speakers with different levels of proficiency in Portuguese evaluated the affective valence and physiological arousal of a set of 10 negative, 10 positive, and 10 neutral words, presented in three different versions: a) in Portuguese spoken by a native speaker; b) (...) in Portuguese spoken by a Chinese individual; c) and in Mandarin Chinese spoken by a native speaker. Our results reveal an interesting effect of increasing time of learning of Portuguese. The effects of prosody versus content in perception of emotional speech are verified. A brief analysis on emotional production in a foreign language is also included. (shrink)

An influential account of human fairness has suggested that norms of equity and fairness evolved as community sizes grew, markets and institutions stabilised and world religions came about. The account rests on the assumptions that humans predominantly interacted with kin in the evolutionary past, lived in genetically related groups and did not have formal norms of cooperation. In this article I present anthropological evidence to the contrary. Contemporary hunter-gatherer societies from around the globe live in nomadic camps with fluid membership (...) and low genetic relatedness; cooperate extensively based on principles of need, and equity; have high prevalence of food sharing, cooperative hunting and alloparenting; and demonstrate formal norms of redistribution for essential goods. I suggest therefore, that this account of fairness is in need of revision. Fairness – understood as equity in distributions – is not a recently evolved disposition in market-integrated societies; but has likely existed in hunter-gatherers too. (shrink)

The traditional Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR) mind-based model suggests that humans understand the world through ontological categories and make socially strategic inferences to avoid threats and focus on utility. This study used an image choice task to test three key factors – category templates, threat, and utility – believed to influence people’s preferences within the CSR framework. The study had three main goals: (1) to refine previous CSR research by providing a more accurate, empirically scaled measure of these three (...) factors using the image choice task; (2) to assess how each factor affected participants’ image preferences; and (3) to explore any interactions between these factors. In a pilot study, we first quantified the threat and utility levels for each image stimulus. Our main study found that, contrary to some previous findings, category templates significantly influenced image preferences, though not in the hierarchy proposed by traditional CSR models. Threat and utility also had independent, significant effects on preferences. However, category templates had the strongest influence on participant choices. The effects of threat and utility varied depending on whether the influence of category templates was accounted for. These findings support certain CSR theories but challenge the proposed hierarchical structure. We also confirmed some previous findings, clarified the relative impact of the three factors, and provided empirical measures of template typicality, utility, and threat for future research. (shrink)

We review the history of decipherment on the technologies used for numbers by the Inkas – khipus and yupanas. We offer a novel interpretation of the portable “checkerboard” yupana drawn in 1615, revealing a numerical algorithm. This analysis sheds new light on the Inka number system, questioning its inclusion of a concept of zero and its interpretation as a positional system. We conclude that Inka numbers and computational methods were likely non-positional, analogous to Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman numbers. We (...) show the Inka multiplication method as similar to – but more efficient than – the Egyptian method in the Rhind Papyrus. This analysis shows the Inka number system to have ranked among the great mathematical traditions of the ancient world. (shrink)

This research examines the role of social cognitive theory in reducing gender inequality in the introduction of digitization among agriculturists’ women in Tanzania. This follows the low pace of digitalization adoption among women in the agriculture sector in Tanzania. The study experience from women farmers in two villages such as Membe and Chinangali in the Chamwino district in the Dodoma region with structural equation modeling indicates that social cognitive theory in terms of self-efficacy, observed learning, and observed behavior can influence (...) digitization among agriculturalist women in Tanzania. While digitization has become inevitable in all sectors, with no exception to agriculture, understanding factors that motivate digitization among women farmers is critical given the low rate of adoption, despite the greater number of women involved in the sector. (shrink)

The lack of anatomical evolution contrasted with an evident behavioral change in humans during their natural history, from about 200,000 to 700,000 years ago, constitutes something of a puzzle. What explains the behavioral change, a change which is commonly understood as cultural? Against the surprisingly widespread but tautological response that the change was driven by culture – which amounts to the unsatisfying argument that culture drives culture, all the way down, or back – this paper presents a theory developed by (...) Andrey Vyshedskiy, whose work on autism and language therapies has led him to an account of the neurobiological basis of voluntary imagination, which here I redescribe as an account of the evolution of the neurology of culture. (shrink)

The research aim is to predict popular psychology based on perfectionism, cognitive style, and emotional schema. The population of the study included men, and women aged 20 to 60 living in the city. According to Krejcie & Morgan’s table, 383 people were selected using a non-proportional stratified random sampling method. To collect data, a popular psychology questionnaire, Hill’s perfectionism questionnaire, Leahy’s emotional schema questionnaire, and Witkin’s cognitive style test were employed. The results showed that there was a significant and positive (...) impact of perfectionism (The Beta coefficient = 0.18, p-value < 0.05) and emotional schema (The Beta coefficient = 0.30, p-value < 0.05) on popular psychology; while there was no correlation between cognitive style and popular psychology which its equation can be presented as PP = 0.3ES + 0.18P + 1.11. Regarding the model, R2 = 0.14 indicates that the model explains 14% of the variances in popular psychology. (shrink)

Predictably, millions of dollars get invested in sport science by the federation for impeccable performance of an athlete. However, there is a gap which exist to understand the nature of cognitive-motion nexus in sports with regard to performance. Hence, this systematic review synthesized evidence on the influence of metacognition, grit and self-efficacy on performance in sport domain using PRISMA guidelines. A search of Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar, PsycINFO and Scopus databases reaped 26 eligible studies. Findings were classified into (...) three domains namely metacognitive inferences, feedback for grit and role of self-efficacy. Grit is positively correlated with metacognition and self-efficacy. We conclude by encouraging the sports system to foster the skills of these constructs. (shrink)

This study examined how Puerto Rican parents living in the United States reason about illnesses and remedies. Special focus is placed on the influence of Puerto Rican cultural, religious, and spiritual beliefs due to the influence of Taino, West African, Spanish, and U.S. beliefs and customs. Parents of 3.5 to 12-year-old children from the Rochester, NY area were asked to complete a questionnaire centered on their beliefs and an open-ended interview that explored how one could get sick and treated for (...) biological illnesses (e.g., the common cold, COVID-19, cancer). Although participants reported religious, spiritual, and mystical beliefs in the questionnaire, they provided scientific explanations for illness and remedies in the interview. This study provides novel findings on how individuals of Puerto Rican descent understand illnesses and remedies and the variation across individuals. This study provides strong evidence for the variation in coexistence of beliefs within this population. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in cognitive theory emphasizes the situatedness of cognitive processes, which occur not only in minds but in bodies engaging with their environments. This article relies on these insights to rethink the concept of religious beliefs. It argues that to believe in something is more fundamental than to believe that something is the case. Religious beliefs are primarily expressions of trust rather than propositional statements. To believe in God is to trust in God, reflecting cognitive processes rooted in embodied (...) and enacted experiences. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary study of novice, American–English speakers found two major discrepancies between their conceptualizations of external human anatomy, and the expert opinion of the scientific and medical community. In contrast to the experts, (1) more than 90% of the novices exhibit polysemy when identifying human limbs and (2) about 50% exhibit partonomic disagreement, about whether ‘thumbs’ are ‘fingers’, and ears are ‘parts of’ the face. Both verbal and visual test modalities were adopted in (2). No significant differences were found by (...) modality in either case. Overall, the results about this cognitive domain support the frequent finding that, when compared to experts, novices tend to under-differentiate, making fewer specific distinctions, and use different taxonomic structures. A novel linguistic paradigm for explaining the specific findings is presented, as is their practical significance for health communications in general. (shrink)

The article addresses the border as an object and yet a tool found in the cultural realm, where the object is approached in three stages. Firstly, the border problem is given the form of an assembled representation, and which becomes an object of one’s reflection. Secondly, this object turns into an obstacle as one faces both the abstract and the concrete references of the representation in question. Thirdly, this obstacle requires some steps to cope with it by one; one becomes (...) a user of the assembled representation, where the object becomes a tool. The divisions suggested by the representation are conditioned by means of the cultural actions. Culture as a set of particular attitudes like belief, intention and assessment allows of approaching the border as both an object and a tool, where not only manipulation but also responsibility and creativity is crucial. (shrink)