The development of human social learning across seven societies

Edwin J C Van Leeuwen,Emma Collier-Baker,Emma Cohen,Daniel B M Haun,Sebastian Schütte,Marie Schäfer,Christian J Rapold

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04468-2

Abstract

Social information use is a pivotal characteristic of the human species. Avoiding the cost of individual exploration, social learning confers substantial fitness benefits under a wide variety of environmental conditions, especially when the process is governed by biases toward relative superiority (e.g., experts, the majority). Here, we examine the development of social information use in children aged 4–14 years (n = 605) across seven societies in a standardised social learning task. We measured two key aspects of social information use: general reliance on social information and majority preference. We show that the extent to which children rely on social information depends on children’s cultural background. The extent of children’s majority preference also varies cross-culturally, but in contrast to social information use, the ontogeny of majority preference follows a U-shaped trajectory across all societies. Our results demonstrate both cultural continuity and diversity in the realm of human social learning.

Highlights

Social information use is a pivotal characteristic of the human species
Reliance on social information even tended to decrease with age in some societies, most pronouncedly in Germany and Indonesia
Future research with a selected set of contrasting cultures might examine whether a relatively high socio-economic standard (Germany and Indonesia (Jakarta) in our sample) might buffer individuals against potential costs incurred by individual exploration[2] and induce innovation

Summary

Introduction

Social information use is a pivotal characteristic of the human species. Avoiding the cost of individual exploration, social learning confers substantial fitness benefits under a wide variety of environmental conditions, especially when the process is governed by biases toward relative superiority (e.g., experts, the majority). Notable exceptions are findings on increased over-imitation—i.e., copying both taskrelevant and task-irrelevant aspects of a social demonstration— in 5–6-year-old children compared to 3–4-year-old children in the United Kingdom[16], and above-chance selectivity in social learning strategies in 3-year olds developing into adaptive reliance on majority information in 7-year olds in the United States[17]. These studies, beg the question of whether the obtained results represent human universals or behavioural trends specific to Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic (i.e., WEIRD) societies[18]

Methods

Results

Conclusion