{"id":415,"date":"2015-02-02T09:26:22","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T09:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/?p=415"},"modified":"2015-02-02T09:26:22","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T09:26:22","slug":"universal-cognitive-mechanisms-explain-the-cultural-success-of-bloodletting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/?p=415","title":{"rendered":"Universal Cognitive Mechanisms Explain the Cultural Success of Bloodletting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Download PDF\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bloodletting-Miton-Claidiere-Mercier.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Miton, H., Claidi\u00e8re, N., &#038; Mercier, H. (2015) Universal Cognitive Mechanisms Explain the Cultural Success of Bloodletting. Evolution and Human Behavior. doi: 10.1016\/j.evolhumbehav.2015.01.003<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-177\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bloodletting.jpg\" alt=\"Bloodletting across cultures worldwide\" width=\"400\" height=\"324\"\/><figcaption><strong>Figure:<\/strong> Bloodletting across cultures worldwide<\/figcaption><strong>Abstract:<\/strong> Bloodletting\u2014the practice of letting blood out to cure a patient\u2014was for centuries one of the main therapies in the West. We lay out three potential explanations for bloodletting\u2019s cultural success: that it was efficient, that it was defended by prestigious sources\u2014in particular ancient physicians\u2014, and that cognitive mechanisms made it a particularly attractive practice. To test these explanations, we first review the anthropological data available in eHRAF. These data reveal that bloodletting is practiced by many unrelated cultures worldwide, where it is performed for different indications and in different ways. This suggests that the success of bloodletting cannot only be explained by its medical efficiency or by the prestige of Western physicians. Instead, some universal cognitive mechanisms likely make bloodletting an attractive form of therapy. We further test this hypothesis using the technique of transmission chains. Three experiments are conducted in the U.S., a culture that does not practice bloodletting. Studies 1 and 2 reveal that stories involving bloodletting survive longer than some other common therapies, and that the most successful variants in the experiments are also the most successful variants worldwide. Study 3 shows how a story about a mundane event\u2014an accidental cut\u2014can turn into a story about bloodletting. This research demonstrates the potential of combining different methodologies\u2014review of anthropological data, experiments, and modeling\u2014to investigate cultural phenomena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Miton, H., Claidi\u00e8re, N., &#038; Mercier, H. (2015) Universal Cognitive Mechanisms Explain the Cultural Success of Bloodletting. Evolution and Human Behavior. doi: 10.1016\/j.evolhumbehav.2015.01.003 Figure: Bloodletting across cultures worldwideAbstract: Bloodletting\u2014the practice of letting blood out to cure a patient\u2014was for centuries one of the main therapies in the West. We lay out three potential explanations for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/?p=415\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Universal Cognitive Mechanisms Explain the Cultural Success of Bloodletting&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-cultural-evolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nicolas.claidiere.fr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}