Abstract

Prior experiments with children across seven different societies have indicated U-shaped age patterns in the likelihood of copying majority demonstrations. It is unclear which learning strategies underlie the observed responses that create these patterns. Here we broaden the understanding of children’s learning strategies by: (1) exploring social learning patterns among 6–13-year-olds (n = 270) from ethnolinguistically varied communities in Vanuatu; (2) comparing these data with those reported from other societies (n = 629), and (3) re-analysing our and previous data based on a theoretically plausible set of underlying strategies using Bayesian methods. We find higher rates of social learning in children from Vanuatu, a country with high linguistic and cultural diversity. Furthermore, our results provide statistical evidence for modest U-shaped age patterns for a more clearly delineated majority learning strategy across the current and previously investigated societies, suggesting that the developmental mechanisms structuring majority bias are cross-culturally highly recurrent and hence a fundamental feature of early human social learning.

Details

Title
Expanding the understanding of majority-bias in children’s social learning
Author
Sibilsky Anne 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Colleran, Heidi 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; McElreath, Richard 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Haun Daniel B M 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Leipzig, Germany (GRID:grid.419518.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2159 1813); Leipzig University, Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig, Germany (GRID:grid.9647.c) (ISNI:0000 0004 7669 9786) 
 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, BirthRites Independent Max Planck Research Group, Leipzig, Germany (GRID:grid.419518.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2159 1813); Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Leipzig, Germany (GRID:grid.419518.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2159 1813) 
 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Leipzig, Germany (GRID:grid.419518.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2159 1813) 
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2654982995
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.