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Westra E, Fitzpatrick S, Brosnan SF, Gruber T, Hobaiter C, Hopper LM, Kelly D, Krupenye C, Luncz LV, Theriault J, Andrews K. In search of animal normativity: a framework for studying social norms in non-human animals. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2024; 99:1058-1074. [PMID: 38268182 PMCID: PMC11078603 DOI: 10.1111/brv.13056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2023] [Revised: 01/13/2024] [Accepted: 01/16/2024] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
Social norms - rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community - are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of 'culture' to become organised around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evan Westra
- Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 100 N. University Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47905, USA
| | - Simon Fitzpatrick
- Department of Philosophy, John Carroll University, 1 John Carroll Boulevard, University Heights, Ohio 44118, USA
| | - Sarah F. Brosnan
- Departments of Psychology & Philosophy, Neuroscience Institute, Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, and the Language Research Center, Georgia State University, Georgia State University, Dept of Psychology, PO Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010 USA
| | - Thibaud Gruber
- Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Campus Biotech - University of Geneva, Chemin des Mines 9, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Catherine Hobaiter
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary’s Quad, South St, Fife KY16 9JP, Scotland
| | - Lydia M. Hopper
- Department of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 720 Rutland Ave, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA
| | - Daniel Kelly
- Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, 100 N. University Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47905, USA
| | - Christopher Krupenye
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
| | - Lydia V. Luncz
- Technological Primates Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Jordan Theriault
- Department of Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Suite 2301, 149 Thirteenth Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA
| | - Kristin Andrews
- Department of Philosophy, York University, S448 Ross Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
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Nakata S, Takezawa M. Conditions under which faithful cultural transmission through teaching promotes cumulative cultural evolution. Sci Rep 2023; 13:20986. [PMID: 38017047 PMCID: PMC10684533 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-47018-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2023] [Accepted: 11/08/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023] Open
Abstract
It has been argued that teaching promotes the accurate transmission of cultural traits and eventually leads to cumulative cultural evolution (CCE). However, previous studies have questioned this argument. In this study, we modified the action sequences model into a network exploring model with reinforcement learning to examine the conditions under which teaching promotes CCE. Our model incorporates a time trade-off between innovation and teaching. Simulations revealed that the positive influence of teaching on CCE depends on task difficulty. When the task was too difficult and advanced, such that it could not be accomplished through individual learning within a limited time, spending more time on teaching-even at the expense of time for innovation-contributed to CCE. On the contrary, the easier the task, the more time was spent on innovation than on teaching, which contributed to the improvement of performance. These findings suggest that teaching becomes more valuable as cultures become more complex. Therefore, humanity must have co-evolved a complex cumulative culture and teaching that supports cultural fidelity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Seiya Nakata
- Graduate School of Humanities and Human Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Masanori Takezawa
- Center for Experimental Research in Social Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
- Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
- Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences, Hokkaido University, N10W7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0810, Japan.
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Kean D, Renner E, Atkinson M, Caldwell CA. Capuchin monkeys learn to use information equally well from individual exploration and social demonstration. Anim Cogn 2023; 26:435-450. [PMID: 36064832 PMCID: PMC9950169 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01654-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2021] [Revised: 05/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The limited evidence of complex culture in non-human primates contrasts strikingly with human behaviour. This may be because non-human primates fail to use information acquired socially as effectively as they use information acquired individually. Here, monkeys were trained on a stimulus discrimination task with a win-stay, lose-shift (WSLS) reward structure. In a social learning condition, the experimenter performed an information trial by choosing between the available stimuli; in an individual condition, monkeys made this choice themselves. The monkeys' subsequent test trials displayed the same stimulus array. They were rewarded for repetition of rewarded ('win-stay') and avoidance of unrewarded ('lose-shift') information trial selections. Nine monkeys reached our pre-determined performance criterion on the initial two-stimulus stage. Their ability to generalise the WSLS strategy was then evaluated by transfer to a three-stimulus stage. Minimal differences were found in information use between the social and individual conditions on two-stimuli. However, a bias was found towards repetition of the information trial, regardless of information source condition or whether the information trial selection was rewarded. Proficient subjects were found to generalise the strategy to three-stimuli following rewarded information trials, but performed at chance on unrewarded. Again, this was not found to vary by source condition. Overall, results suggest no fundamental barrier to non-human primates' use of information from a social source. However, the apparent struggle to learn from the absence of rewards hints at a difficulty with using information acquired from unsuccessful attempts; this could be linked to the limited evidence for cumulative culture in non-human primates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Donna Kean
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK.
- Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling (APOPO), Sokoine University of Agriculture, PO Box 3078, Morogoro, Tanzania.
| | - Elizabeth Renner
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
| | - Mark Atkinson
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
- School of Management and School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9AJ, UK
| | - Christine A Caldwell
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
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Cultural transmission vectors of essential knowledge and skills among Tsimane forager-farmers. EVOL HUM BEHAV 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2022.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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Lew-Levy S, Bombjaková D, Milks A, Kiabiya Ntamboudila F, Kline MA, Broesch T. Costly teaching contributes to the acquisition of spear hunting skill among BaYaka forager adolescents. Proc Biol Sci 2022; 289:20220164. [PMID: 35538787 PMCID: PMC9091853 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Teaching likely evolved in humans to facilitate the faithful transmission of complex tasks. As the oldest evidenced hunting technology, spear hunting requires acquiring several complex physical and cognitive competencies. In this study, we used observational and interview data collected among BaYaka foragers (Republic of the Congo) to test the predictions that costlier teaching types would be observed at a greater frequency than less costly teaching in the domain of spear hunting and that teachers would calibrate their teaching to pupil skill level. To observe naturalistic teaching during spear hunting, we invited teacher-pupil groupings to spear hunt while wearing GoPro cameras. We analysed 68 h of footage totalling 519 teaching episodes. Most observed teaching events were costly. Direct instruction was the most frequently observed teaching type. Older pupils received less teaching and more opportunities to lead the spear hunt than their younger counterparts. Teachers did not appear to adjust their teaching to pupil experience, potentially because age was a more easily accessible heuristic for pupil skill than experience. Our study shows that costly teaching is frequently used to transmit complex tasks and that instruction may play a privileged role in the transmission of spear hunting knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sheina Lew-Levy
- Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Daša Bombjaková
- Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
| | - Annemieke Milks
- Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Francy Kiabiya Ntamboudila
- Faculté des Lettres, Arts, et Sciences Humaines, Marien Ngouabi University, Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo
| | - Michelle Anne Kline
- Division of Psychology and Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
| | - Tanya Broesch
- Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
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Mandalaywala TM. Do nonhuman animals reason about prestige‐based status? SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY COMPASS 2022. [DOI: 10.1111/spc3.12660] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Tara M. Mandalaywala
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences University of Massachusetts Amherst Massachusetts USA
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Ganesh K, Gabora L. Modeling Discontinuous Cultural Evolution: The Impact of Cross-Domain Transfer. Front Psychol 2022; 13:786072. [PMID: 35282262 PMCID: PMC8908956 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.786072] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2021] [Accepted: 01/10/2022] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
This paper uses autocatalytic networks to model discontinuous cultural transitions involving cross-domain transfer, using as an illustrative example, artworks inspired by the oldest-known uncontested example of figurative art: the carving of the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, or lion-human. Autocatalytic networks provide a general modeling setting in which nodes are not just passive transmitters of activation; they actively galvanize, or "catalyze" the synthesis of novel ("foodset-derived") nodes from existing ones (the "foodset.") This makes them uniquely suited to model how new structure grows out of earlier structure, i.e., cumulative, generative network growth. They have been used to model the origin and early evolution of biological life, and the emergence of cognitive structures capable of undergoing cultural evolution. We conducted a study in which six individual creators and one group generated music, prose, poetry, and visual art inspired by the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, and answered questions about the process. The data revealed four through-lines by which they expressed the Löwenmensch in an alternative art form: (1) lion-human hybrid, (2) subtracting from the whole to reveal the form within, (3) deterioration, and (4) waiting to be found with a story to tell. Autocatalytic networks were used to model how these four spontaneously derived through-lines form a cultural lineage from Löwenmensch to artist to audience. We used the resulting data from three creators to model the cross-domain transfer from inspirational source (sculpted figurine) to creative product (music, poetry, prose, visual art). These four spontaneously-generated threads of cultural continuity formed the backbone of this Löwenmensch-inspired cultural lineage, enabling culture to evolve even in the face of discontinuity at the level conventional categories or domains. We know of no other theory of cultural evolution that accommodates cross-domain transfer or other forms of discontinuity. The approach paves the way for a broad scientific framework for the origins of evolutionary processes.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Liane Gabora
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC, Canada
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Montrey M, Shultz TR. Copy the In-group: Group Membership Trumps Perceived Reliability, Warmth, and Competence in a Social-Learning Task. Psychol Sci 2021; 33:165-174. [PMID: 34939477 DOI: 10.1177/09567976211032224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Surprisingly little is known about how social groups influence social learning. Although several studies have shown that people prefer to copy in-group members, these studies have failed to resolve whether group membership genuinely affects who is copied or whether group membership merely correlates with other known factors, such as similarity and familiarity. Using the minimal-group paradigm, we disentangled these effects in an online social-learning game. In a sample of 540 adults, we found a robust in-group-copying bias that (a) was bolstered by a preference for observing in-group members; (b) overrode perceived reliability, warmth, and competence; (c) grew stronger when social information was scarce; and (d) even caused cultural divergence between intermixed groups. These results suggest that people genuinely employ a copy-the-in-group social-learning strategy, which could help explain how inefficient behaviors spread through social learning and how humans maintain the cultural diversity needed for cumulative cultural evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Thomas R Shultz
- Department of Psychology, McGill University.,School of Computer Science, McGill University
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