When does it pay to follow the crowd? Children optimize imitation of causally irrelevant actions performed by a majority.

Autor: Evans CL; Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany; School of Biology, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9ST, UK., Burdett ERR; School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park Campus, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK; Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PN, UK; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK. Electronic address: emily.burdett@nottingham.ac.uk., Murray K; School of Biology, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9ST, UK., Carpenter M; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of experimental child psychology [J Exp Child Psychol] 2021 Dec; Vol. 212, pp. 105229. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jul 17.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105229
Abstrakt: Cultural evolutionary theory posits that human cultural complexity rests on a set of adaptive learning biases that help to guide functionality and optimality in social learning, but this sits in contrast with the commonly held view that children are unselective "over-imitators." Here, we tested whether 4- and 6-year-old children use social learning biases flexibly to fine-tune their copying of irrelevant actions. Children watched a video of a majority demonstrating causally irrelevant actions and a minority demonstrating only causally relevant actions. In one condition observers approved of the majority and disapproved of the minority, and in the other condition observers watched the majority and minority neutrally. Results showed that both 4- and 6-year-olds copied the inefficient majority more often than the efficient minority when the observers had approved of the majority's actions, but they copied the efficient minority significantly more when the observers had watched neutrally. We discuss the implications of children's optimal selectivity in copying and the importance of integrating social approval into majority-biased learning when acquiring norms and conventions and in broader processes of cultural evolution.
(Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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