How to learn about teaching: An evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals

Abstract

Abstract:The human species is more reliant on cultural adaptation than any other species, but it is unclear how observational learning can give rise to the faithful transmission of cultural adaptations. One possibility is that teaching facilitates accurate social transmission by narrowing the range of inferences that learners make. However, there is wide disagreement about how to define teaching, and how to interpret the empirical evidence for teaching across cultures and species. In this article I argue that disputes about the nature and prevalence of teaching across human societies and nonhuman animals are based on a number of deep-rooted theoretical differences between fields, as well as on important differences in how teaching is defined. To reconcile these disparate bodies of research, I review the three major approaches to the study of teaching -mentalistic, culture-based, and functionalist -and outline the research questions about teaching that each addresses. I then argue for a new, integrated framework that differentiates between teaching types according to the specific adaptive problems that each type solves, and apply this framework to restructure current empirical evidence on teaching in humans and nonhuman animals. This integrative framework generates novel insights, with broad implications for the study of the evolution of teaching, including the roles of cognitive constraints and cooperative dilemmas in how and when teaching evolves. Finally, I propose an explanation for why some types of teaching are uniquely human, and discuss new directions for research motivated by this framework.

Knowing, Learning and Teaching—How Homo Became Docens

“…Beaune et al 2009;Renfrew et al 2009). However, while a multitude of aspects of evolution and learning have been examined, surprisingly few studies are devoted to investigating teaching and the specific roles teaching might have had in human evolution (but see Gärdenfors & Högberg submitted;Kline 2015). Anders Högberg, Peter Gärdenfors & Lars Larsson In this text we suggest that the evolution of human cooperation and cultural learning (Heyes 2012a, b) may crucially rely on one important mechanism: the ability to teach.…”

The Archaeology of Teaching and the Evolution ofHomo docens

“…At the other extreme are ethnographic studies, where teaching is often defined as explicit verbal instruction. An intermediate third type comprises more cognitively oriented definitions (Csibra and Gergely 2009;Kline 2015). As a background to our arguments, we present different concepts of teaching in the next section.…”

Selective learning and teaching among Japanese and German children.

“…Decisions concerning selective teaching and learning may also be subject to these cultural differences (Kline, 2014). Asian children's judgments are more easily influenced by consensus than Western children's (Chen, Corriveau, & Harris, 2013;Corriveau, Kim, Song, & Harris, 2013) perhaps due to an emphasis on group harmony and relationship in these collectivist cultures (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2005).…”