The forgotten adaptive social benefits of social learning in animals

Theoretical and empirical scholars of cultural evolution have traditionally studied social learning strategies, such as conformity, as adaptive strategies to obtain accurate information about the environment, whereas within social psychology there has been a greater focus upon the social consequences of such strategies. Although these two approaches are often used in concert when studying human social learning, we believe the potential social benefits of conformity, and of social learning more broadly, have been overlooked in studies of non-humans. We review evidence from studies of homophily, imitation, and rapid facial mimicry that suggests that behaving like others affords social benefits to non-human animals and that behaviour matching may be deployed strategically to increase affiliation. Furthermore, we review studies of conformity in dispersers, and suggest that forgoing personal information or preferences in favour of those of the new group during immigration may be a strategy to facilitate social integration. We therefore propose that the informational and social functions of conformity apply to humans and animals alike. We use this perspective to generate several interesting research questions to inspire work in this field. For example, under what conditions do animals use informational or social conformity and what role does uncertainty play in social learning in immigrant individuals?