Page 502 - Cultures and Organizations

The Evolution of Cultures 467

one another. Figure 12.1 presents two primary levels, the individual and
society, the latter being the unit that carries deep cultural values. It shows
how analyses at the level of the individual (top) and at the level of society
(bottom) complement one another because they both contribute to under-
standing what happens in the arena of everyday life. Available roles meet

willing candidates there, and the stream of social life flows on, ritual by
ritual. Given a sufficiently large pool of individuals from which to choose,

the variation in individuals and their adaptive capacities allows for fi ll-
ing every available role with different individuals over time. This process
gives substantial continuity to the social life of a society. Rituals tend to
persist in their essence even if, across generations, they are overloaded
with new symbolic meanings, change names, or are performed with new
technologies.
The figure draws attention to the fact that individuals come to the

rituals of social life with their unique personalities and find roles available

to them depending on the nature of the institutions that exist in soci-
ety. Other levels of grouping have been ignored in the figure; in reality,

FIGURE 12.1 Mutual Homeostasis System of Individual and
Society Levels

Personality

Drives
Characteristic Life story Characteristic Biography
Life story
adaptations adaptations
Learning Goals
Goals
Evolutionary

base Stream of Life Rituals
Roles Learning Roles
Characteristic Story of a society Characteristic Cultural
institutions institutions history
Values
Culture

Time runs from left to right. The top tier (inspired by McCrae and Costa, 2003)
shows how individuals live; the bottom tier shows how societies have similar
life stories but at an aggregated level.