Empirical investigations of social learning, cooperation, and their role in the evolution of complex culture

Social learning;Culture diffusion;Cooperation;Social evolution

Evans, Cara ; Laland, Kevin N. ; Laland, Kevin N.

University:University of St Andrews

Department:Biology (School of)

关键词: Social learning;    Culture diffusion;    Cooperation;    Social evolution;   

Others  :  https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/9756/CaraEvansPhDThesis.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

来源: DR-NTU

【 摘 要 】

There is something unique about human culture. Its complex technologies, customs,institutions, symbolisms and norms, which are shared and maintained and improvedacross countless generations, are what sets it apart from the ‘cultures’ of otheranimals. The fundamental question that researchers are only just beginning to unravelis: How do we account for the gap between their ‘cultures’ and ours? The answer liesin a deeper understanding of culture’s complex constituent components: from themicro-level psychological mechanisms that guide and facilitate accurate sociallearning, to the macro-level cultural processes that unfold within large-scalecooperative groups. This thesis attempts to contribute to two broad themes that are ofrelevance to this question. The first theme involves the evolution of accurate andhigh-fidelity cultural transmission. In Chapter 2, a meta-analysis conducted acrossprimate social learning studies finds support for the common assumption thatimitative and/or emulative learning mechanisms are required for the high-fidelitytransmission of complex instrumental cultural goals. Chapter 3, adopting anexperimental study with young children, then questions the claim that mechanisms ofhigh-fidelity copying have reached such heights in our own species that they will evenlead us to blindly copy irrelevant, and potentially costly, information. The secondtheme involves investigations of the mutually reinforcing relationship predictedbetween cultural complexity and ultra-cooperativeness in humans, employing a seriesof laboratory-based experimental investigations with adults. Chapter 4 finds onlylimited support for a positive relationship between cooperative behaviour andbehavioural imitation, which is believed to facilitate cultural group cohesion. Finally,Chapter 5 presents evidence suggesting that access to cultural information ispositively associated with an individual’s cooperative reputation, and argues that thisdynamic might help to scaffold the evolution of increased cultural complexity andcooperation in a learning environment where cultural information carries high value.