Basics of social cognitive and affective neuroscience.
XII. Genes and culture

Summary

Culture is information that is capable of affecting an individual’s behaviour, which they acquire from other individuals through social learning. Culture is a source of adaptive behaviour. Information includes knowledge, beliefs, values and skills. There is the possibility of the existence of culture in non-human social animals. Uniquely human social cognition is associated with a large-scale neurocognitive network which has six nodes:

• posterior temporal cortex,
• extrastriate body area,
• posterior superior temporal sulcus,
• temporo-parietal junction,
• ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, and
• cingular cortex.

Key words:
culture, human social cognition, co-evolution gene, culture, niche construction theory.

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