Behavioural homogenization with spillovers in a normative domain

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Cultural Evolution
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Culture's role in human social evolution is debated, particularly how social learning shapes group-typical behaviors and norms.
• A key hypothesis suggests social learning leads to conformity in group behaviors, influencing individual choices even in private (asocial) settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally investigate whether social learning leads to behavioral homogeneity and if these effects spill over into asocial settings.
• To examine the underlying mechanisms of conformity and self-consistency in driving these behavioral changes.

Main Methods:

• An experiment was conducted with 878 groups across 116 communities in Sudan.
• Participants evaluated appropriate behavior in a film scenario under two conditions: private (asocial) and public (social), with randomized order.
• Public evaluations facilitated social learning, allowing observation of others' choices.

Main Results:

• Public evaluations significantly increased the homogeneity of normative evaluations compared to private evaluations.
• When the social condition preceded the asocial condition, the homogenizing effect spilled over, influencing subsequent private evaluations.
• Conformity was a dominant mechanism, particularly when in conflict with self-consistency; self-consistency drove persistence of choices over time.

Conclusions:

• Social learning rapidly induces convergence on group norms, with effects persisting in subsequent private settings.
• Conformity and self-consistency are key drivers, with conformity being more influential in immediate decision-making.
• Conformity varied heterogeneously, with females showing higher conformity than males, and conformity increasing with the number of observed decisions.