How cultural evolution can inform the science of science communication—and vice versa

The science of science communication (SSC) seeks evidence-based practices to convey scientific findings and promote behaviors aligned with a scientifically accurate worldview amid increasing misinformation. The paper argues that cultural evolution—a field studying how cultural traits change, stabilize, and diffuse as a function of content and socio-personal dynamics—offers a unifying framework for SSC. It motivates an integrative approach drawing on cultural attraction theory and dual inheritance theory to organize SSC findings around three sets of factors: content properties, individual conditions, and social dynamics. The introduction sets the purpose to synthesize these fields, demonstrate mutual benefits, and pose open questions, contending that cultural evolution can guide SSC, while SSC provides real-world tests for cultural evolutionary theory.

A dedicated review appears in the section 'Previous applications of cultural evolution to science communication.' Prior work largely focused on content properties that make (mis)information culturally attractive (e.g., framing, narratives, counterintuitiveness, social relevance, intentionality, essentialism, emotional valence such as disgust and fear, and cognitive biases). Some exceptions consider source-based social influence (e.g., 'science mimicry' leveraging prestige and authority) and epistemic vigilance, but practical recommendations often continue to emphasize content features. The review critiques narrow content-focused approaches for echoing the knowledge-deficit model and for neglecting how individual conditions and social dynamics shape belief and behavior. Conversely, social-learning–focused models (e.g., conformity-driven spillovers) often ignore content attractiveness, prestige bias, and individuals’ inductive biases. The literature thus reveals valuable first approximations but insufficient integration of content, individual, and social factors, motivating a more comprehensive cultural evolutionary framework for SSC.

This is a conceptual synthesis and theoretical integration. The author organizes SSC-relevant phenomena into an integrative cultural evolutionary framework comprising three interacting sets of factors: (1) content properties (cognitive/content biases and factors of attraction), (2) individual conditions (preexisting knowledge, beliefs, values, identities, cognitive styles, inductive biases, epistemic vigilance), and (3) social dynamics (social norms, social learning strategies such as conformity and prestige, network properties, and norm enforcement). The approach draws on interdisciplinary evidence (theoretical models, experiments, field studies) from cultural evolution and SSC, maps SSC findings onto cultural evolutionary concepts, evaluates limitations of prior applications, and formulates open research questions about factor interactions and relative strengths. No new empirical data are collected.

• Cultural evolution offers a unifying framework for SSC by structuring determinants of diffusion of (mis)information and behaviors into content properties, individual conditions, and social dynamics.
• Content properties: Emotions (especially disgust/fear), social relevance, agency/intentionality, narratives, and framing can increase cultural attractiveness and help explain the appeal of conspiracy narratives and resistance to vaccines/GMOs. Content biases stem from evolved cognitive mechanisms (e.g., behavioral immune system; agency detection).
• Individual conditions: Preexisting beliefs, values, identities, cognitive reflection, spirituality/religiosity, ideology, conspiracy thinking, disgust sensitivity, and purity/naturalness concerns modulate acceptance of information and behaviors. These can drive polarization (even absent social influence) and generate cultural linkage, where traits co-occur in packages (e.g., antivaccination with alternative medicine preferences), potentially confounding analyses.
• Social dynamics: Social norms, incentives, and learning strategies (conformity, prestige/majority/success/self-similarity biases) can stabilize and diffuse traits largely independent of content, sometimes even when maladaptive. Spillover effects and tipping points can produce endogenous change, offering cost-effective intervention pathways.
• Limitations of narrow approaches: Content-only views risk reverting to a knowledge-deficit model; social-only models may neglect content attractiveness and individual inductive biases; individual-only views ignore inherent content appeal and powerful social influences.
• Integration imperative: The three sets of factors interact in ways not yet well understood; their relative strengths shape which intervention levers (e.g., framing vs. norm change, targeting prestige vs. least receptive individuals) will be effective in specific contexts.
• Open questions: How do content, individual, and social factors interact across issues and cultures? Under what conditions do inoculation vs. backfire occur? How prevalent are different social learning strategies in SSC contexts, and how do they compete or combine with content attractiveness and inductive biases?

Linking cultural evolution to SSC addresses the central SSC challenge: why accurate information often fails to spread and why misinformation can thrive. By recognizing that diffusion depends simultaneously on content biases, individual priors/identities, and social incentives/structures, the framework explains variability across issues (e.g., vaccines vs. climate change), audiences, and cultures, and clarifies when and why interventions succeed or fail. It highlights actionable dynamics (spillovers, tipping points, polarization) and suggests matching strategies to dominant mechanisms in a given case (e.g., leverage conformity for spillovers, target prestige sources, or reframe content to neutralize emotional appeal). The synthesis also emphasizes that reasoning and argumentation operate within social and motivational contexts; thus, dialog and inoculation can help but are bounded by identity and norm pressures. The proposed agenda urges empirical tests of factor interactions to refine models and guide tailored, effective science communication.

There is substantial, underutilized consilience between cultural evolution and SSC. Cultural evolution can guide and unify SSC by integrating content properties, individual conditions, and social dynamics into a coherent framework for understanding and influencing the spread of (mis)information and behaviors. Conversely, SSC offers a rich real-world context to test and advance cultural evolutionary theory. The paper calls for future research to investigate interactions and relative strengths of these factors, incorporate multiple social learning strategies into models, and translate theoretical insights into targeted, context-sensitive interventions.

• The work is a conceptual synthesis without new empirical data; proposed integrations and predictions require empirical testing.
• Interactions among content properties, individual conditions, and social dynamics are identified as poorly understood; the paper outlines but does not resolve these complexities.
• Prior applications reviewed are limited by narrow focus (content-only or social-only) and by potential neglect of cultural linkage and inductive biases; comprehensive integrative models remain to be developed and validated.
• Ecological conditions (e.g., material insecurity, crises) are noted as a potential fourth factor but are not incorporated due to scant SSC-focused research.
• Individual-level processes remain underexamined in formal cultural evolution models, posing challenges for population-level integration.