{"id":8393,"date":"2019-05-22T16:07:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/meme\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:07:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:07:13","slug":"meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/meme\/","title":{"rendered":"Meme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A neologism introduced by the zoologist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.richarddawkins.net\/\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.richarddawkins.net\/&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Richard Dawkins<\/a> in his book <a href=\"http:\/\/macroevolution.narod.ru\/gene\/gene30.htm\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/macroevolution.narod.ru\/gene\/gene30.htm&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">The s<\/span><span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">elfish gene<\/span><\/a> (1976), where it is portrayed as a unit of cultural inheritance analogous to a gene. &nbsp;Memes are cultural replicators, and as such are likened to viruses in that they &#8216;infect&#8217; our brains by means of imitation rather than by genetic transmission. &nbsp;Acting then like &#8216;viruses of the mind&#8217;, examples include beliefs (e.g., about child rearing), catchphrases, clothing fashions (e.g., hem-lines), hairstyles, ideas, and inventions. &nbsp;Meme pools (i.e., the sum total of all memes in a population at any given time) are the targets of a form of Lamarckian selection, and those that survive this winnowing process go on to reproduce and multiply, both within and between generations. &nbsp;At a more superordinate level, there is the memeplex:&nbsp;a constellation of mutually supporting memes, such as those making up a political ideology or a religion. &nbsp;The meme concept has given rise to the science of mimetics that has assumed a niche in some quarters of evolutionary psychology and elsewhere, and which even has its own dedicated journal (viz., <a href=\"http:\/\/cfpm.org\/jom-emit\/\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/cfpm.org\/jom-emit\/&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span class=\"\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">Journal of Memetics<\/span><\/a> founded in 1997). &nbsp;Similar ideas were expressed by the population geneticists <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/94\/15\/7719.long\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/94\/15\/7719.long&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luigi Cavalli-Sforza<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www-evo.stanford.edu\/marc.html\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www-evo.stanford.edu\/marc.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Feldman<\/a>, but they lacked the publicity given to Dawkins&#8217; meme concept.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See Cultural and biological evolution, <a href=\"cultural_evolution_and_biological_evolution\">Cultural evolution and biological evolution<\/a>, <a href=\"cultural_selection\">Cultural selection<\/a>, <a href=\"lamarckism\">Lamarckism<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A neologism introduced by the zoologist Richard Dawkins in his book The selfish gene (1976), where it is portrayed as a unit of cultural inheritance analogous to a gene. &nbsp;Memes are cultural replicators, and as such are likened to viruses in that they &#8216;infect&#8217; our brains by means of imitation rather than by genetic transmission. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/meme\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Meme&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}