ABSTRACT
Ethnic stereotypes and scientific publications are obviously different; on the surface, the disappearance of a trait from a stereotype and the rarity of innovative ideas in a scientific literature seem to have very little in common with one another. Lurking beneath these differences, however, are some conceptual similarities. Both stories pertain to cultural norms-the socially shared information that describes a human population. Each story illustrates something about persistence or change in the contents of these norms over time. And in each story, the persistence or change in these norms appears to have occurred in the absence of intention. Thus, the precise questions begged by each story are specific versions of a broader, common question: What process accounts for the unintended contents of cultural norms?
