No abstract

Cultural evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, cultural evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western culture. Finally, Chinese mainland participants responded less than other participants to increased environmental change within the task. Our results suggest that learning strategies in humans are culturally variable and not genetically fixed, necessitating the study of the ‘social learning of social learning strategies' whereby the dynamics of cultural evolution are responsive to social processes, such as migration, education and globalization.

Much research has been conducted to document and sometimes to provide proximate explanations (e.g., Confucianism vs. Western philosophy) for East-West cultural differences. The ultimate evolutionary mechanisms underlying these cross-cultural differences have not been addressed. We propose in this review that East-West cultural differences (e.g., independent versus interdependent self construal; autonomy versus harmony in values; hierarchical versus egalitarian relationships) result from social learning and individual learning as primary means to adapt to the local environment. Historical and contemporary evidence from multiple sources is reviewed that indicates smaller extents of environmental variability in East Asia including China than in Europe and North America, favoring social learning in the East and individual learning in the West. Corresponding to these different adaptive strategies, East-West differences stem from learning styles that differ between copying and rote memorization, on the one hand, and critical thinking and innovative problem solving, on the other hand. These primary cultural differences are correlated with such personality attributes as conformity, compliance, and independence that serve to facilitate social or individual learning. This and other cross-cultural and educational psychological research is reviewed as evidence to support our evolutionary explanation of why Eastern and Western cultures differ in the ways in which they do.Cross-cultural research in the past 50 years has mainly focused on comparisons between Eastern and Western cultures, yielding a myriad of observations and findings of East-West differences. In educational psychology, these findings are relevant to issues ranging from achievement motivation (e.g., Hess et al. 1987), academic performance (e.g., Stevenson et al. 1985), and Educ Psychol Rev (2011) 23:99-129

Men’s mate values are defined based on three broad categories—good genes, good providers, both of which are selected early across the animal kingdom, and good fathers that represent the last pedigree of primate evolution and may have contributed to the human development of modernity and gender equality. Women select long-term mates based on these 3 mate values, and women’s mate preference over them depends on the prevailing ecological conditions. Based on 4 samples comprising a total of 1,257 Chinese women, we found that women in general and those with high socioeconomic status in particular (Study 1), as well as women in cities compared with rural women (Study 2), preferred good-father over good-provider and good-genes attributes in long-term relationships. Similar results were obtained in an experimental study (n = 123) where, under good economic compared to poor economic and control conditions, women prioritized good-father over good-provider and good-genes attributes. These findings indicate that in modern-day economies, in which a woman spends the same amount of time and energy on education and employment and acquires approximately the same amount of resources and same extent of safety and disease protection as men, her mate preference is likely to center on good-father attributes, as her reproductive success depends on a helper at the nest increasingly more than other mate contributions.

Objective To assess the public’s preferences regarding potential privacy threats from devices or services storing health-related personal data.Materials and Methods A pan-European survey based on a stated-preference experiment for assessing preferences for electronic health data storage, access, and sharing.Results We obtained 20 882 survey responses (94 606 preferences) from 27 EU member countries. Respondents recognized the benefits of storing electronic health information, with 75.5%, 63.9%, and 58.9% agreeing that storage was important for improving treatment quality, preventing epidemics, and reducing delays, respectively. Concerns about different levels of access by third parties were expressed by 48.9% to 60.6% of respondents.On average, compared to devices or systems that only store basic health status information, respondents preferred devices that also store identification data (coefficient/relative preference 95% CI = 0.04 [0.00-0.08], P = 0.034) and information on lifelong health conditions (coefficient = 0.13 [0.08 to 0.18], P < 0.001), but there was no evidence of this for devices with information on sensitive health conditions such as mental and sexual health and addictions (coefficient = −0.03 [−0.09 to 0.02], P = 0.24). Respondents were averse to their immediate family (coefficient = −0.05 [−0.05 to −0.01], P = 0.011) and home care nurses (coefficient = −0.06 [−0.11 to −0.02], P = 0.004) viewing this data, and strongly averse to health insurance companies (coefficient = −0.43 [−0.52 to 0.34], P < 0.001), private sector pharmaceutical companies (coefficient = −0.82 [−0.99 to −0.64], P < 0.001), and academic researchers (coefficient = −0.53 [−0.66 to −0.40], P < 0.001) viewing the data.Conclusions Storing more detailed electronic health data was generally preferred, but respondents were averse to wider access to and sharing of this information. When developing frameworks for the use of electronic health data, policy makers should consider approaches that both highlight the benefits to the individual and minimize the perception of privacy risks.