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When does social learning become cultural learning?

When does social learning become cultural learning? Developmental research on selective social learning, or ‘social learning strategies’, is currently a rich source of information about when children copy behaviour, and who they prefer to copy. It also has the potential to tell us when and how human social learning becomes cultural learning; i.e. mediated by psychological mechanisms that are specialized, genetically or culturally, to promote cultural inheritance. However, this review article argues that, to realize its potential, research on the development of selective social learning needs more clearly to distinguish functional from mechanistic explanation; to achieve integration with research on attention and learning in adult humans and ‘dumb’ animals; and to recognize that psychological mechanisms can be specialized, not only by genetic evolution, but also by associative learning and cultural evolution. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Developmental Science Wiley

When does social learning become cultural learning?

Heyes, Cecilia
Developmental Science , Volume 20 (2) – Mar 1, 2017
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References (81)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISSN
1363-755X
eISSN
1467-7687
DOI
10.1111/desc.12350
pmid
26547886
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Developmental research on selective social learning, or ‘social learning strategies’, is currently a rich source of information about when children copy behaviour, and who they prefer to copy. It also has the potential to tell us when and how human social learning becomes cultural learning; i.e. mediated by psychological mechanisms that are specialized, genetically or culturally, to promote cultural inheritance. However, this review article argues that, to realize its potential, research on the development of selective social learning needs more clearly to distinguish functional from mechanistic explanation; to achieve integration with research on attention and learning in adult humans and ‘dumb’ animals; and to recognize that psychological mechanisms can be specialized, not only by genetic evolution, but also by associative learning and cultural evolution.

Journal

Developmental Science – Wiley

Published: Mar 1, 2017

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