Cultural Adaptation Following Hurricane Sandy Cultural Psychology
The objective of this study is to examine Hurricane Sandy and the adaptation of the population through the lens of the psychological cultural adaptation model. Cultural adaptation holds that evolutionary forces shape "innate genetically determined behaviors." (Boyd and Richerson, 2002) Stated specifically is the following: "Culture profoundly alters human evolution, but not because culture is learned. Rather, culture entails a novel evolutionary tradeoff. Social learning allows human populations to accumulate reservoirs of adaptive information over many generations, leading to the cumulative cultural evolution of highly adaptive social institutions and technology. Because this process is much faster than genetic evolution, it allows human populations to evolve cultural adaptations to local environments, an ability that was a masterful adaptation to the chaotic, rapidly changing world of the Pleistocene." (Boyd and Richerson, 2002)