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Cultural phenomena may show considerable stability over time and space. Transmission mechanisms responsible for their maintenance are worthy of theoretical and empirical inquiry; they are complex and each possible pathway has different effects on evolutionary stability of traits, as can be shown theoretically. A survey designed to evaluate the importance of some components of cultural transmission on a variety of traits showed that religion and politics are mostly determined in the family, a mode of transmission which guarantees high evolutionary stability and maintenance of high variation between and within groups.
Cavalli-Sforza et al. (Fri,) studied this question.