Abstract
How animal communities arrive at homogeneous behavioural preferences is a central question for studies of cultural evolution. Here, we investigated whether chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) would relinquish a pre-existing behaviour to adopt an alternative demonstrated by an overwhelming majority of group mates; in other words, whether chimpanzees behave in a conformist manner. In each of five groups of chimpanzees (N = 37), one individual was trained on one method of opening a two-action puzzle box to obtain food, while the remaining individuals learned the alternative method. Over 5 h of open access to the apparatus in a group context, it was found that 4/5 ‘minority’ individuals explored the majority method and three of these used this new method in the majority of trials. Those that switched did so after observing only a small subset of their group, thereby not matching conventional definitions of conformity. In a further ‘Dyad’ condition, six pairs of chimpanzees were trained on alternative methods and then given access to the task together. Only one of these individuals ever switched method. The number of observations that individuals in the minority and Dyad individuals made of their untrained method was not found to influence whether or not they themselves switched to use it. In a final ‘Asocial’ condition, individuals (N = 10) did not receive social information and did not deviate from their first-learned method. We argue that these results demonstrate an important influence of social context upon prioritisation of social information over pre-existing methods, which can result in group homogeneity of behaviour.
Highlights
Culture emerges and is maintained by a suite of social learning mechanisms and biases that govern how social information is transmitted and when individuals choose to prioritise social information over pre-existing methods
We investigated whether chimpanzees proficient in a pre-existing minority method of opening a puzzle box (Fig. 1), and who were naïve to alternative methods, would converge on the different behaviour demonstrated in a group context by an overwhelming majority of group mates
Results showed that minority individuals (MIN-I) were, relative to majority individuals (MAJ-I), highly likely to switch from a pre-existing method to a socially demonstrated alternative in a group context, even though neither method was more efficient or productive
Summary
Culture emerges and is maintained by a suite of social learning mechanisms and biases that govern how social information is transmitted and when individuals choose to prioritise social information over pre-existing methods. Chimpanzees who explored alternative methods after their group was seeded with a method of solving a puzzle box converged on homogeneity of behaviour, a disposition the authors suggest may have been conformity to the majority preference (Whiten et al 2005) This has been suggested to be explicable by reversion to an individual’s first-learned method, a hypothesis that cannot be rejected without further experimental testing (Van Leeuwen and Haun 2013). We investigated whether chimpanzees proficient in a pre-existing minority method (minority individual/s = ‘MIN-I’) of opening a puzzle box (Fig. 1), and who were naïve to alternative methods, would converge on the different behaviour demonstrated in a group context by an overwhelming majority of group mates (majority individual/s = ‘MAJ-I’).
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