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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2076 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are indebted to the following people and institutions: Kenya: the Ngorika community, the local primary school, the Samburu research assistants, the local district education office and the National Council for Science and Technology in Nairobi; Central African Republic: the BaAka communities and assistants in the Dzanga-Sangha Reserve, the Direction of the Dzanga-Sangha Project, local WWF staff and the National Ministry for Education and Scientific Research in Bangui; Samoa: the community of Safotu, the Sacred Heart Primary School and its principal Sister Maria Tevaga and the Ministry of Sports and Education; Indonesia: the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Indonesia, Arditya Putra, Ewa Andriana, Jakarta High Scope School; Zambia: The Chim-funshi Wildlife Orphanage, Chimfunshi’s Board of Trustees, Innocent Mulenga, Clifford Nyongolo, Marloes van der Goot and Katherine Cronin; Brazil: Andrezza Conçeição, E. M.E.I. Alacid Nunes, E.M.E.I. Dagmar Gonçalves and the Secretaria Municipal de Educação – Soure; Namibia: ≠Akhoe Hai‖om community, |KhomxaKhoeda Primary School, Ephraim Kavetuna, Disney Tjizao and to WIMSA (Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa). We thank all the children that participated in the study and Roger Mundry for statistical advice. D.B.M.H., E.C., M.S., S.S. and E.J.C.v.L. were supported by the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. E.J.C.v.L. was furthermore supported in part by the ERC (grant agreement no. 609819, project SOMICS) and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
Funding
We are indebted to the following people and institutions: Kenya: the Ngorika community, the local primary school, the Samburu research assistants, the local district education office and the National Council for Science and Technology in Nairobi; Central African Republic: the BaAka communities and assistants in the Dzanga-Sangha Reserve, the Direction of the Dzanga-Sangha Project, local WWF staff and the National Ministry for Education and Scientific Research in Bangui; Samoa: the community of Safotu, the Sacred Heart Primary School and its principal Sister Maria Tevaga and the Ministry of Sports and Education; Indonesia: the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Indonesia, Arditya Putra, Ewa Andriana, Jakarta High Scope School; Zambia: The Chim-funshi Wildlife Orphanage, Chimfunshi’s Board of Trustees, Innocent Mulenga, Clifford Nyongolo, Marloes van der Goot and Katherine Cronin; Brazil: Andrezza Conçeição, E. M.E.I. Alacid Nunes, E.M.E.I. Dagmar Gonçalves and the Secretaria Municipal de Educação – Soure; Namibia: ≠Akhoe Hai‖om community, |KhomxaKhoeda Primary School, Ephraim Kavetuna, Disney Tjizao and to WIMSA (Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa). We thank all the children that participated in the study and Roger Mundry for statistical advice. D.B.M.H., E.C., M.S., S.S. and E.J.C.v.L. were supported by the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. E.J.C.v.L. was furthermore supported in part by the ERC (grant agreement no. 609819, project SOMICS) and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO).