Well, 'conceit' has many meanings, but, yes, art is an ultimate conceit.
And many art forms use words.
But not too deep in your language/symbol/pattern/behavior reply is the
(IMHO mistaken) notion that these effects are available to us to find the
cause. As in genetics, you take away the gene first, and see what goes or
changes. Behavior is a base state, little more. You have to change it
first.
The approach I can only see as valid, unless memetics is to slip
uselessly (IMHO) into an academic circle of contention within philosophy
and psychology and sociology, or even a subset of all of them, with
rivaling schools, is a 'find the damn meme' approach through cognitive
neuroscience, microbiology, and medical imaging.
Yes, to keep Tim's metaphor standing, it's a nice building, but could I
see one being built?
Or, where are the subcontractors of culture?
These techniques are becoming available.
While the approach most of us seem to like, a study of culture's effects
through individual's holding of behaviors, is a nice thing in and of
itself, it is a study at most, not a science, not even, unless the maths
get more complex, a discipline.
It is, at present, a conjecture.
All it's ever been, really.