Social learning among Congo Basin hunter–gatherers

Hewlett, Barry S.; Fouts, Hillary N.; Boyette, Adam H.; Hewlett, Bonnie L.

doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0373

Cited by 346 publications

(193 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…facilitating acquisition of hunting skills) and is not involved in the transmission of innovations [39,90]. In contrast, humans' capacity for mental state attribution, joint attention and foresight may allow teachers to recognize and correct their pupils' ignorance, demonstrate novel actions, and thereby facilitate the transmission and improvement of cultural inventions across a range of contexts [91,92] (see also [88,93]). …”

Section: Broader Implications (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social learning and the development of individual and group behaviour in mammal societies

Thornton

Clutton‐Brock

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

184

140

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As in human societies, social learning may play an important role in shaping individual and group characteristics in other mammals. Here, we review research on non-primate mammals, concentrating on work at our long-term meerkat study site, where longitudinal data and field experiments have generated important insights into the role of social learning under natural conditions. Meerkats live under high predation pressure and occupy a difficult foraging niche. Accordingly, pups make extensive use of social information in learning to avoid predation and obtain food. Where individual learning is costly or opportunities are lacking, as in the acquisition of prey-handling skills, adults play an active role in promoting learning through teaching. Social learning can also cause information to spread through groups, but our data suggest that this does not necessarily result in homogeneous, group-wide traditions. Moreover, traditions are commonly eroded by individual learning. We suggest that traditions will only persist where there are high costs of deviating from the group norm or where skill development requires extensive time and effort. Persistent traditions could, theoretically, modify selection pressures and influence genetic evolution. Further empirical studies of social learning in natural populations are now urgently needed to substantiate theoretical claims.

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Section: Broader Implications (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social learning and the development of individual and group behaviour in mammal societies

Thornton

Clutton‐Brock

2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

184

140

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“…Articles in several parts of this issue (e.g. [2,5,6,25,37,50,51]) describe experimental evidence that rules such as 'conform to the majority behaviour', 'copy the most successful individual' and 'learn from familiar individuals' are used by a range of distantly related animals, as well as humans, although differing underlying processes may be involved.…”

Section: Culture Evolves In the Animal Kingdommentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Csibra & Gergely [48] provide evidence that infants are sensitive to often subtle cues ('natural pedagogy' in the authors' terminology) that an adult's actions are performed 'for them' to learn from. Hewlett et al [50] directly address the role of teaching in hunter-gatherer childhood with some of the first objective and numerical studies of its occurrence. Consistent with the proposal that pedagogy is natural and universal in humans [48], they find that deliberate teaching does occur, especially in the context of caregiver-to-child transmission.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Cultural Mindsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A different perspective is provided in the four papers of part 4, which do not so much address cultural evolution itself, as how it has shaped minds to acquire complex cultural repertoires [48][49][50][51]. In principle, this is an issue relevant for the subjects of part 1, insofar as the young of any species that displays some degree of culture is expected to be subject to selection pressures shaping ontogenetic processes to facilitate cultural learning.…”

Section: Introduction and Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two papers in part 4 provide convergent evidence for such selectivity (see also [37]). Hewlett et al [50] provide the first detailed observational evidence for such learning biases among children growing up in hunter-gatherer communities, while Harris and Corriveau [51] use experimental procedures to demonstrate the early emergence and developmental time-course of such biases.…”

Section: Introduction and Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Culture evolves

Whiten¹,

Hinde²,

Laland

et al. 2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

200

140

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Culture pervades human lives and has allowed our species to create niches all around the world and its oceans, in ways quite unlike any other primate. Indeed, our cultural nature appears so distinctive that it is often thought to separate humanity from the rest of nature and the Darwinian forces that shape it. A contrary view arises through the recent discoveries of a diverse range of disciplines, here brought together to illustrate the scope of a burgeoning field of cultural evolution and to facilitate cross-disciplinary fertilization. Each approach emphasizes important linkages between culture and evolutionary biology rather than quarantining one from the other. Recent studies reveal that processes important in cultural transmission are more widespread and significant across the animal kingdom than earlier recognized, with important implications for evolutionary theory. Recent archaeological discoveries have pushed back the origins of human culture to much more ancient times than traditionally thought. These developments suggest previously unidentified continuities between animal and human culture. A third new array of discoveries concerns the later diversification of human cultures, where the operations of Darwinian-like processes are identified, in part, through scientific methods borrowed from biology. Finally, surprising discoveries have been made about the imprint of cultural evolution in the predispositions of human minds for cultural transmission.

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Cultural Evolution

Mesoudi

2018

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences

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Cultural evolution is the idea that cultural change, that is changes in socially acquired information such as knowledge or beliefs, constitutes a Darwinian evolutionary process that shares fundamental similarities with (but also some differences to) genetic evolution. While parallels between cultural and biological change have been drawn ever since Darwin provided his theory of evolution, it is only in the last few decades that this parallel has been fully pursued. Models, experiments and fieldwork has probed the details of how individuals learn from one another within societies (cultural microevolution), while comparative phylogenetic methods have been used to reconstruct long‐term cultural change and diversity over long timescales (cultural macroevolution). Key topics include language, cooperation, technology, innovation, migration and religion. The theory and field of cultural evolution can link the biological and social sciences by providing an evolutionarily based theory of cultural change and diversity. Key Concepts Culture is defined as information that is passed from individual to individual nongenetically, via social learning processes such as teaching or imitation. Cultural evolution is the idea that cultural change constitutes an evolutionary process. Cultural change constitutes an evolutionary process because cultural traits vary, they are inherited via social learning from individual to individual, and some cultural traits are more likely to be passed on than others. Many species possess culture in the form of social learning, but few (perhaps only humans) have cumulative cultural evolution where the body of culturally evolving knowledge exceeds that which a single individual could invent or discover. Cultural microevolution describes the ways in which cultural traits change within groups or societies, such as via different social learning biases. Social learning biases include tendencies to learn from specific classes of individuals (e.g. one's parents, knowledgeable teachers, prestigious celebrities), learn particular kinds of things (e.g. about disgust‐inducing stimuli), or learn from others in particular situations (e.g. when uncertain). Cultural macroevolution describes long‐term changes in culture at or above the level of the society and can be studied using phylogenetic methods similar to those used to reconstruct past genetic evolution. Gene‐culture coevolution describes cases where culturally evolving traits alter selection pressures on genes and vice versa. Common topics of study in the field of cultural evolution include language, cooperation, technology, innovation, migration and religion. The theory of cultural evolution can link the biological or natural sciences with the social sciences and humanities, by providing an evolutionarily‐based theory of cultural change.

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Social learning among Congo Basin hunter–gatherers

Cited by 346 publications

References 31 publications

Social learning and the development of individual and group behaviour in mammal societies

Social learning and the development of individual and group behaviour in mammal societies

Culture evolves

Cultural Evolution

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