The Ratchet Effect

In culture psychology there is an important idea that is known as the ratchet effect. This is analogous effect that cultural ideas and inventions are things that you can add onto without loosing any of the previous information/ideas. This means that cultural ideas are subject to innovations and modification, and this occurs through social transmission. One personal example that I relate to is my hair straighter. In order to have the hair straightener that I have in the present time I will have to go back hundreds of years to explain this. First there would have been the idea of someone wanting to have straight hair (now i'm not sure when or why this occurred, that would need further research), and thus a new cultural idea was born. This new idea of having straight hair would have been social transmitted, meaning that many people were practicing this new behavior and it was catching on and spreading. The ratchet effect comes into play where there are modifications to this process. I'm not sure how it would have first started or what the procedures were like back in the day, but first hand I can remember myself having to straighten my sisters hair with a iron and an iron board. Now, well into the 21st century there have been many modifications and many different hair straightening tools, so my sister no longer has to bring out the iron and ironing board. There are even chemicals that some people use to permanently straighten their hair! Basically every single object, practice or behavior started off as a new idea, a cultural invention, then through consistent repetition of a particular idea innovation can occur. Another great example is cars! Just think about what the first moving machine was like and what we now have on the roads today.