culturgen
/ˈkʌltʃədʒ(ə)n/Biology and Sociology
noun
In the terminology of C. J. Lumsden and E. O. Wilson: an element of behaviour or cultural artefact whose repetition or reproduction is transmissible from one generation to another and may be subject to a selective process; a cultural trait considered as a theoretical unit of cultural evolution (and thus analogous to a gene).
- Now largely displaced by the similar concept of the meme..
Origin
1980s. From culture + -gen.