Are There Any True Formal Models of Success- and Prestige-Biased Social Learning?

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Abstract Cultural transmission theorists have proposed there is an inherent tradeoff between social learning strategies [SLS s] that rely on direct observation of a cultural variant’s payoffs (i.e., direct bias) and those that rely on a model’s cues of success or prestige (i.e., indirect bias). While the former relies on higher-quality informational goods, a model’s success or prestige cues may be easier to access. This paper reviews mathematical models that have purported to capture indirect bias, and shows they fail to capture this tradeoff, instead making assumptions that reduce their transmission dynamics to those of a direct bias. I include a simple agent-based model to illustrate that their formal equivalence, and therefore our ability to conclude that success and prestige bias are adaptive SLS s, depends on a high correlation between success/prestige cues and a model’s payoffs. This suggests the importance of empirically ascertaining how learners evaluate a model’s fitness, and how they mitigate the risks of biasing their learning on payoff-correlates rather than payoffs themselves. Exploring the cognition underlying these decisions may shed light on maladaptive social learning.