Minerva Fast Track Group “Culture and Social Behavior”
Culture is, by definition, shaped by our relationships with others. Culture comprises all the information, skills, and behaviors we acquire through social learning. It is therefore fundamentally influenced by social interaction. These relationships influence how culture spreads within and between groups, while individuals’ cultural repertoires affect how and with whom they form bonds. Our group investigates this dynamic interplay between culture and social behavior in animals, with a focus on the primate lineage.
Using camera trapping, direct observation, field experiments, and long-term datasets, we examine how culture shapes social relationships at both individual and group levels. Does sharing a cultural behavior strengthen social bonds? Do animals adopt local traditions to facilitate social integration? And how do cultural traditions contribute to social cohesion, or conversely, to group fragmentation? To answer these questions, we combine research in wild and captive populations across multiple primate species.
By comparing species that differ in their social systems and cultural capacities, we aim to better understand how culture and social behavior have co-evolved. Importantly, both cultural knowledge and social bonds can contribute to survival. As animal populations increasingly face rapid human-driven environmental change, this interplay has important conservation implications. Cultural diversity is increasingly recognized as a form of biodiversity worth conserving, integrating culture’s effects on social relationships may be key to supporting the long-term persistence of wild populations.
