The Evolution of Facultative Conformity Based on Similarity

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Social psychology
• Behavioral economics

Background:

• Conformist social learning significantly influences human cultural and genetic evolution.
• The benefits of conformity depend on shared optima between learners and demonstrators, creating an evolutionary trade-off.
• Existing models often overlook the flexibility of social learning strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how cognitive flexibility in social learning strategies affects the evolution of conformity.
• To model gene-culture coevolution with cognition that assesses similarity between learners and demonstrators.
• To experimentally test whether social learners adjust conformity based on perceived similarity.

Main Methods:

• Developed a gene-culture coevolutionary model incorporating cognitive assessment of similarity.
• Conducted an incentivized experiment to observe social learners' adjustments based on perceived similarity.
• Performed a second experiment to explore social learning behavior in the absence of similarity information.

Main Results:

• Gene-culture model showed facultative, often asymmetric, social learning strategies can evolve.
• Experimental results revealed symmetric adjustments in social learning based on perceived similarity, eliminating the assumed trade-off.
• Most participants did not systematically follow social information, and ignored it when similarity was unknown.

Conclusions:

• Social cognition enables discriminating use of conformity, moderating evolutionary trade-offs.
• Observed symmetric adjustments challenge assumptions of asymmetric facultative strategies in models.
• Human social learning is more nuanced than rigid conformity, adapting to perceived similarity and context.