Abstract
Acting on socially learned information involves risk, especially when the consequences imply certain costs with uncertain benefits. Current evolutionary theories argue that decision-makers evaluate and respond to this information based on context cues, such as prestige (the prestige bias model) and/or incentives (the risk and incentives model). We tested the roles of each in explaining trust using a preregistered vignette-based study involving advice about livestock among Maasai pastoralists. In exploratory analyses, we also investigated how the relevance of each might be influenced by recent cultural and economic changes, such as market integration and shifting cultural values. Our confirmatory analysis failed to support the prestige bias model, and partially supported the risk and incentives model. Exploratory analyses suggested that regional acculturation varied strongly between northern vs. southern areas, divided by a small mountain. Consistent with the idea that trust varies with socially transmitted values and regional differences in market integration, people living near densely populated towns in the southern region were more likely to trust socially learned information about livestock. Higher trust among market-integrated participants might reflect a coordination solution in a region where traditional pastoralism is beset with novel conflicts of interest.
Highlights
Individuals must often make critical decisions based on information provided by others who might be untrustworthy, either because their information is poor or they have incentives to deceive
Because we developed an a priori market integration (MI) index, we denote the MI cluster here as empirically determined MI (EMI). (Note that we made no a priori traditional beliefs (TB) index, as we did with MI.)
Regardless of whether the source was prestigious vs. believed from personal experience to be generally knowledgeable, trust in socially learned information about grazing conditions was low in both conditions, and preferences for fact-checking were high in both conditions
Summary
Individuals must often make critical decisions based on information provided by others who might be untrustworthy, either because their information is poor or they have incentives to deceive. In a semi-arid ecology such as northern Tanzania, this advice implies an unavoidable cost (moving the herd to another area) with a large but uncertain benefit. How should the herder decide if this advice is trustworthy? (Here, we define ‘trust’ as ‘reliance upon [socially learned] information ... Current theories of social learning focus on the source of information and/or risks of acting on the information. Some theories emphasise evolved learning biases, triggered by cues such as the prestige of the information source (Henrich, 2017; Richerson & Boyd, 2005), which we refer to as the prestige bias model (PBM). Other theories emphasise flexible copying based on incentives, i.e. expected outcomes of Prestige bias model of trust
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