An intergenerational transmission model for the cultural evolution of helping behavior

The cultural coefficient of similarity, or probability that two individuals learn the same idea from a common ancestor, is offered as an explanation for patterns of helping behavior in human societies. A cultural-transmission model predicts that when maternal influence in offspring learning is pre-dominant, matrilineality will evolve in a culture. Other predictions about the form of matrilineal and patrilineal societies are made from the model and contrasted to a sociobiological explanation of matrilineality.