van Leeuwen, Edwin J. C. and Cohen, Emma and Collier-Baker, Emma and Rapold, Christian J. and Schaefer, Marie and Schuette, Sebastian and Haun, Daniel B. M. (2018) The development of human social learning across seven societies. NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, 9: 2076. ISSN 2041-1723,
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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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | IMITATIVE FLEXIBILITY; CUMULATIVE CULTURE; CONFORMITY; CHILDREN; TRANSMISSION; EVOLUTION; MAJORITY; PATTERNS; BIAS; |
| Subjects: | 400 Language > 400 Language, Linguistics |
| Divisions: | Languages and Literatures > Institut für Information und Medien, Sprache und Kultur (I:IMSK) Languages and Literatures > Institut für Information und Medien, Sprache und Kultur (I:IMSK) > Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Mar 2020 12:21 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Mar 2020 12:21 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/14559 |
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