The when and who of social learning and conformist transmission

Abstract

Formal evolutionary models predict when individuals' rely on social learning over individual learning and the relative strength of their conformist social learning biases. Here we use both treatment effects and individual variation to test predictions about the impact of (1) the number of traits in an environment, (2) the adaptive or payoff relevance of those traits, (3) the fidelity of transmission, and (4) the size of groups. We find that both social learning and the strength of conformist transmission increases with the number of traits, the adaptive value of those traits, and the fidelity of transmission. The strength of conformist transmission increases with group size, but only when there were 2 traits in the environment. Using individual-level variation and recognizing that treatment effects predictably impact individuals differently, we show that IQ negatively predicts social learning, but has a U-shaped relationship to conformist transmission, suggesting strategic use of conformist-biased social learning among those with the highest IQ. Other plausible predictors, such as status, cultural background, and personality, were not predictive. Broadly, our results reveal that not only is the conformist transmission bias ubiquitous, but that past experiments, both human and non-human, have likely underestimated its prevalence and the prevalence of social learning by restricting designs to only 2 traits.

Innovation in the collective brain

“…Moreover, variance is introduced by other factors, such as mistakes in transmission and individual differences in social learning and conformist biases (e.g. higher IQ individuals may be less conformist [52]). Finally, the same principles that lead to larger populations possessing more complex technologies [33] can also shape and hone the mechanisms of cultural transmission, such as pedagogy and language.…”

“…These strategies and biases include direct and indirect cues of the popularity of cultural traits (e.g. conformist transmission bias; [52]), direct and indirect cues that a potential model has adaptive know-how worth learning (e.g. success and prestige biases; [35,53]), filtering mechanisms to assess the accuracy of information and sincerity of models (e.g.…”

The Evolution of Individual and Cultural Variation in Social Learning

“…Others have found that performance in an asocial learning task subsequently 115 predicts social information use, although again in opposite directions: two studies found that better 116 individual learners were more likely to use social information [41,42], two studies that they were 117 less likely [43,44]. Three studies with humans have linked social learning to relatively stable 118 individual differences, specifically social dominance [45], collectivism [46] and IQ [47]. 119…”

Pursuing Darwin’s curious parallel: Prospects for a science of cultural evolution

“…There is some evidence linking this individual variation to other individual differences, such as personality (87) or intelligence (88,89), but these correlations are weak and exploratory. There is also evidence of cross-cultural variation in social learning, specifically higher social learning in collectivistic East Asian societies than in individualistic Western societies (90,91).…”