Abstract

Culture is transmitted and replicated among humans, constituting a foundational element of social studies. However, despite the relevance of this epistemological premise, there is relatively little empirical attention to the processes of social reproduction of culture. In this study, adopting the theoretical approach of cultural evolutionism and employing quantitative methods, attention is focused on cultural transmission in football fandom. Data from a web survey conducted on students of the University of Milan, totaling 4047 valid cases, are presented. Analyses show that football fandom tends to reproduce primarily through family socialization, vertically, at an early stage of life, although horizontal dynamics are also evident, linked to the historical and environmental context experienced by the individual. Consistent with Mesoudi’s definition (2011), estimating the possible relative selection effects, beyond neutral replication (random copying), assigns a «replicative» advantage of approximately 9% to environmental conformity (frequency-dependent bias), namely the Milanese context, for Inter and Milan teams, and approximately 12% to the imitation of successful models and sporting success itself (model-based bias and content bias). Meaning that achieving numerous sporting successes in the 1990s would confer a «replicative» advantage to Milan (benefiting from the combined effect of success and conformity). A «replicative» advantage of x percentage points means that, given fans of different teams in generation t, in generation t+1, there will be a x percentage increase in fans of the team that has that selection advantage, compared to fans of other teams. The results of this study, within the limitations of the data used, a sample not generalizable to the population but rich in heterogeneity, can serve as a litmus test for investigating cultural transmission phenomena more systematically according to the cultural evolutionism approach.