The cognitive origin and cultural evolution of taboos in human societies

Abstract

AbstractWhy do human societies have so many taboos, defined here as culturally prohibited activities? In this article, I offer a naturalistic account of the origin and transmission of taboos from an evolutionary anthropological perspective. Drawing from the extensive literature in cognitive science and cultural evolution, I argue that taboos may arise from our tendency to retrospectively attribute causes to misfortunes due to a deterministic worldview, and the imperfect transmission of taboos often leads to the loss of their original utilitarian rationale, making them resemble mere cultural conventions. While this account does not explain all cultural prohibitions in human societies, it provides valuable insights into the psychological and social mechanisms by which many taboos are generated in a bottom‐up fashion. Towards the end of the article, I offer a few implications on the proposed account of taboos and specify some testable predictions that merit further studies.