Abstract
We report an experimental test of the hypothesis that contrasting traditions will persist for longer, maintaining cultural differences between otherwise similar groups, under conditions of uncertainty about payoffs from individual learning. We studied the persistence of two alternative, experimentally-introduced, task solutions in chains of human participants. In some chains, participants were led to believe that final payoffs would be difficult to predict for an innovative solution, and in others, participants were aware that their final payoff would be directly linked to their immediate solution. Although the difference between the conditions was illusory (only participants’ impressions were manipulated, not actual payoffs) clear differences were found between the conditions. Consistent with predictions, in the chains that were less certain about final payoffs, the distinctive variants endured over several replacement “generations” of participants. In contrast, in the other chains, the influence of the experimentally-introduced solutions was rapidly diluted by participants’ exploration of alternative approaches. The finding provides support for the notion that rates of cultural change are likely to be slower for behaviors for which the relationship between performance and payoff may be hard to predict.
Highlights
Theoretical models predict that individuals should increase their reliance on social learning where the potential payoffs from individual learning are uncertain, or difficult to predict [1,2], and that the outcome of such a trade-off can be, under some circumstances, suboptimal traditions [3,4]
The possibility of suboptimal outcomes arises because an increased reliance on social learning within a population entails a reduction in innovation, and less exploration of potentially superior alternatives
The behavior of the population is generally expected to move in the direction of optimality, but an increased reliance on social learning would be expected to result in slower rates of cultural change
Summary
Theoretical models predict that individuals should (adaptively) increase their reliance on social learning where the potential payoffs from individual learning are uncertain, or difficult to predict [1,2], and that the outcome of such a trade-off can be, under some circumstances, suboptimal traditions [3,4]. Our aim in the current study was to implement a direct experimental test of the hypothesis that particular designs will persist for longer when the likely payoffs for innovative strategies are difficult to predict, using the spaghetti tower task from previous experiments [10,12] To do this we have experimentally manipulated the initial solutions presented to the early generation participants of each chain, exploiting the logic of ‘‘two-action’’ designs, such that it is possible to track the influence of our two alternative ‘‘seed’’ solutions along the chains. A previous study using the same two alternative designs in the context of a dyadic social learning experiment [14] established that one of these alternatives was objectively suboptimal to the other This offered the additional possibility of tracking the relative rates of change of the two tower types (of varying effectiveness) under different payoff conditions. We predicted any differences in persistence of the designs between the predictable and unpredictable payoff conditions would be most marked for the suboptimal tower design, which was expected to be more rapidly modified in the predictable payoff chains
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