Norms and institutions enable large-scale human cooperation by creating shared expectations and changing individuals’ incentives via monitoring or sanctioning. Like material technologies, these social technologies satisfy instrumental ends and solve difficult problems. However, the similarities and differences between the evolution of material technologies and the evolution of social technologies remain unresolved. Here, we review evidence suggesting that, compared to the evolution of material technologies, institutional and normative evolution exhibits constraints in the production of variation and the selection of useful variants. These constraints stem from the frequency-dependent nature of social technologies and limit the pace and scope of normative and institutional evolution. We conclude by reviewing research on the social transmission of institutions and norms and highlighting an experimental paradigm to study their cultural evolution.

中文翻译：

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制度是否像物质技术一样发展？


规范和制度通过建立共同的期望并通过监控或制裁改变个人的激励来实现大规模的人类合作。与物质技术一样，这些社会技术满足工具性目的并解决难题。然而，物质技术的演化与社会技术的演化之间的异同仍未得到解决。在这里，我们回顾了证据，表明与材料技术的演变相比，制度和规范的演变在变异的产生和有用变异的选择方面表现出限制。这些限制源于社会技术的频率依赖性，并限制了规范和制度演变的速度和范围。最后，我们回顾了制度和规范的社会传播研究，并强调了研究其文化演变的实验范式。