Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection

Abstract Many cultural phenomena evolve through a Darwinian process whereby adaptive variants are selected and spread at the expense of competing variants. While cultural evolutionary theory emphasises the importance of social learning to this process, experimental studies indicate that people’s dom...

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Autores principales:	Bradley Walker, José Segovia Martín, Monica Tamariz, Nicolas Fay
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/ccdf985783dc47448f6d67a598cae684
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:ccdf985783dc47448f6d67a598cae6842021-12-02T16:56:36ZMaintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection10.1038/s41598-021-99340-72045-2322https://doaj.org/article/ccdf985783dc47448f6d67a598cae6842021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99340-7https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Many cultural phenomena evolve through a Darwinian process whereby adaptive variants are selected and spread at the expense of competing variants. While cultural evolutionary theory emphasises the importance of social learning to this process, experimental studies indicate that people’s dominant response is to maintain their prior behaviour. In addition, while payoff-biased learning is crucial to Darwinian cultural evolution, learner behaviour is not always guided by variant payoffs. Here, we use agent-based modelling to investigate the role of maintenance in Darwinian cultural evolution. We vary the degree to which learner behaviour is payoff-biased (i.e., based on critical evaluation of variant payoffs), and compare three uncritical (non-payoff-biased) strategies that are used alongside payoff-biased learning: copying others, innovating new variants, and maintaining prior variants. In line with previous research, we show that some level of payoff-biased learning is crucial for populations to converge on adaptive cultural variants. Importantly, when combined with payoff-biased learning, uncritical maintenance leads to stronger population-level adaptation than uncritical copying or innovation, highlighting the importance of maintenance to cultural selection. This advantage of maintenance as a default learning strategy may help explain why it is a common human behaviour.Bradley WalkerJosé Segovia MartínMonica TamarizNicolas FayNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Bradley Walker José Segovia Martín Monica Tamariz Nicolas Fay Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
description	Abstract Many cultural phenomena evolve through a Darwinian process whereby adaptive variants are selected and spread at the expense of competing variants. While cultural evolutionary theory emphasises the importance of social learning to this process, experimental studies indicate that people’s dominant response is to maintain their prior behaviour. In addition, while payoff-biased learning is crucial to Darwinian cultural evolution, learner behaviour is not always guided by variant payoffs. Here, we use agent-based modelling to investigate the role of maintenance in Darwinian cultural evolution. We vary the degree to which learner behaviour is payoff-biased (i.e., based on critical evaluation of variant payoffs), and compare three uncritical (non-payoff-biased) strategies that are used alongside payoff-biased learning: copying others, innovating new variants, and maintaining prior variants. In line with previous research, we show that some level of payoff-biased learning is crucial for populations to converge on adaptive cultural variants. Importantly, when combined with payoff-biased learning, uncritical maintenance leads to stronger population-level adaptation than uncritical copying or innovation, highlighting the importance of maintenance to cultural selection. This advantage of maintenance as a default learning strategy may help explain why it is a common human behaviour.
format	article
author	Bradley Walker José Segovia Martín Monica Tamariz Nicolas Fay
author_facet	Bradley Walker José Segovia Martín Monica Tamariz Nicolas Fay
author_sort	Bradley Walker
title	Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
title_short	Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
title_full	Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
title_fullStr	Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
title_full_unstemmed	Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
title_sort	maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/ccdf985783dc47448f6d67a598cae684
work_keys_str_mv	AT bradleywalker maintenanceofpriorbehaviourcanenhanceculturalselection AT josesegoviamartin maintenanceofpriorbehaviourcanenhanceculturalselection AT monicatamariz maintenanceofpriorbehaviourcanenhanceculturalselection AT nicolasfay maintenanceofpriorbehaviourcanenhanceculturalselection
_version_	1718382828245221376

Maintenance of prior behaviour can enhance cultural selection

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