Combining Conformist and Payoff Bias in Cultural Evolution

Hong, Ze

doi:10.1007/s12110-022-09435-x

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In figure 2, success bias was also reduced by allowing individuals to exhibit conformity or anti-conformity with probability 1 − ρ = 0.6 (yellow and green points, respectively). Previous research has shown that the combination of conformity and success bias can be more adaptive than either kind of bias alone [63]. However, in the present model with completely accurate success bias, reduction of this bias can only decrease the probability of acquiring the skill from the sample of role models and therefore make it more difficult for social learning to increase.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

“…If success bias were imperfect (i.e. did not lead to the adoption of the more advantageous phenotype in the sample of n with probability 1), as in [42,63], results would probably differ. In our model, a probability ρ < 1 of success bias and a probability 1 − ρ of unbiased transmission together can be conceptualized as 'imperfect success bias' (orange points in figure 2).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution

Denton

Ram

Feldman

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The emergence of human societies with complex language and cumulative culture is considered a major evolutionary transition. Why such a high degree of cumulative culture is unique to humans is perplexing given the potential fitness advantages of cultural accumulation. Here, Boyd & Richerson’s (1996 Why culture is common, but cultural evolution is rare. Proc. Br. Acad. 88 , 77–93) discrete-cultural-trait model is extended to incorporate arbitrarily strong selection; conformist, anti-conformist and unbiased frequency-dependent transmission; random and periodic environmental variation; finite population size; and multiple ‘skill levels.’ From their infinite-population-size model with success bias and a single skill level, Boyd and Richerson concluded that social learning is favoured over individual learning under a wider range of conditions when social learning is initially common than initially rare. We find that this holds only if the number n of individuals observed by a social learner is sufficiently small, but with a finite population and/or a combination of success-biased and conformist or unbiased transmission, this result holds with larger n . Assuming social learning has reached fixation, the increase in a population’s mean skill level is lower if cumulative culture is initially absent than initially present, if population size is finite, or if cultural transmission has a frequency-dependent component. Hence, multiple barriers to cultural accumulation may explain its rarity. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Human socio-cultural evolution in light of evolutionary transitions’.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution

Denton

Ram

Feldman

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Others have analysed models with interactions between different transmission biases. Hong [ 42 ] studied a model with both conformity and success bias (which he calls ‘pay-off bias’). He showed that an intermediate level of conformity bias—not too little but not too much—can be adaptive and evolve to prevent the invasion of low-success traits while allowing the invasion of high-success traits (for another example of adaptive filtering, refer to [ 43 ]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He showed that an intermediate level of conformity bias—not too little but not too much—can be adaptive and evolve to prevent the invasion of low-success traits while allowing the invasion of high-success traits (for another example of adaptive filtering, refer to [ 43 ]). Similar to our model ( equation (2.10) ), Hong [ 42 , eqn. 1] also additively combined the two transmission biases.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics

Egozi,

Ram

2024

R. Soc. Open Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

If the traits of more successful individuals are more likely to be adopted, the resulting cultural transmission is described as success biased. In contrast, if the traits of ‘prestigious’ individuals—those who have already been copied many times—are more likely to be adopted, this is described as prestige-biased cultural transmission. In this case, prestige can be a convenient proxy for success. However, it is unclear how success and prestige biases interact to determine the outcome of cultural evolutionary dynamics. Here, we aim to clarify this using mathematical analysis and stochastic simulations. We find analytic approximations to the stochastic role-model choice process that facilitate the mathematical analysis and reduce the computational complexity of simulations. Approximations are given to the fixation probability and the fixation time of an invading cultural trait in different environments. Our results show that success bias effectively plays the role of natural selection, whereas prestige bias effectively plays the role of genetic drift. Prestige bias, which may be strong in highly social communities, also accelerates the evolutionary dynamics, as expected in a rich-get-richer process. These results signify a step forward in understanding how different cultural transmission biases interact.

show abstract

“…This means that processes that do not involve direct fitness evaluations, such as conformist transmission, which can be adaptive in spatially heterogeneous environments (Henrich and Boyd, 1998; Nakahashi, Wakano, and Henrich, 2012), and when observational errors are common (Henrich and Boyd, 2002), are not going to effectively spread novel adaptive cultural traits by themselves, and can sometimes even lead to population collapse under specific ecological conditions (Whitehead and Richerson, 2009). However, adaptive cultural evolution occurs when a combination of learning strategies is used, such as: (1) conformist learning combined with individual learning (Boyd and Richerson, 1995; Henrich and Boyd, 1998) or payoff‐biased learning (Henrich and Boyd, 2002; Hong, 2022b); (2) “flexible learning” that enables individual learning to be more accurate or less costly (Boyd and Richerson, 1995); (3) “critical social learning,” where individuals engage in social learning first, and if results are unsatisfactory, then deploy individual learning (Enquist, Eriksson, and Ghirlanda, 2007); and (4) “specialized hybrid learning,” in which individuals deploy asocial learning in some contexts and social learning in other contexts (Boyd and Richerson, 1995; Kharratzadeh et al., 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolving payoff currencies through the construction of causal theories

Hong,

Henrich

2023

American Anthropologist

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Payoff‐biased cultural learning has been extensively discussed in the literature on cultural evolution, but where do payoff currencies come from in the first place? Are they products of genetic or cultural evolution? Here we present a simulation model to explore the possibility of novel payoff currencies emerging through a process of theory construction, where agents come up with “channels” via which different cultural traits contribute to some ultimate payoff and use such “channels” as intermediate payoff currencies to make trait‐updating decisions. We show that theory‐building as a strategy is mostly favored when the noise associated with the ultimate‐level payoff is high, selective pressures are strong, and the probability of arriving at the right theory is high. This approach provides insights into both the emergence of payoff currencies and the role of cognition for causal model building. We close by discussing the implications of our model for the broader question of causal learning in social contexts.

show abstract

Combining Conformist and Payoff Bias in Cultural Evolution

Cited by 7 publications

References 47 publications

Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution

Conditions that favour cumulative cultural evolution

Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics

Evolving payoff currencies through the construction of causal theories

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About