"Social Learning Strategies" Flashcards
Define social learning.
Learning facilitated by observation of or interaction with another individual or its products.
What are some potential costs of asocial/trial and error learning?
Time and energy loss, opportunity costs and exposure to predation.
What is ‘success bias’?
Copying traits with high instrumental utility.
What is ‘prestige bias’?
Copying traits with high conventional utility.
What is ‘payoff bias’?
Incorporating novel behavioural modifications.
What kind of factors make people cool when they are uncertain?
They have no prior information, outdated information or see cumulative knowledge of conspecifics as more reliable.
What are children likely to do when they observe unreliable information?
They innovate and create their own solution.
Give 5 factors, other than uncertainty, that motivate social learning?
Age, social rank, early-life stress, reproductive state and unsatisfactory payoff of current behaviour.
What are model biases?
Biases in who we copy, based on age, social ranks, prestige, etc, sometimes without the behaviour being necessary to their status.
What are frequency-dependent biases?
Copying the majority (conformist transmission): the most common behaviour (across individuals) is most likely to be adopted.
What are content-dependent biases?
Adopting behaviours only after directly evaluating their value, relevance, nature and effectiveness.
What type of stimuli to humans prefer?
Social over physical for transmitting stories, etc, strong emotional descriptions, and relevant to survival.
Population patterns (are/are not) indicative of particular SLSs.
Are not.
Can SLSs result in negative behaviour?
Yes - they can result in the acquisition and spread of maladaptive behaviour.
What do children prefer to learn from adults?
New skills.
