Higher frequency of social learning in China than in the West shows cultural variation in the dynamics of cultural evolution

Cultural evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, cultural evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western cul...文化进化模型已明确一系列条件，在这些条件下，相较于非社会学习（asocial learning，即个体自主学习），社会学习（social learning，即模仿他人）被预测具有适应性优势，这一点在人类群体中尤为显著——因为通过社会学习获得的信息可在多代传承中不断累积。然而，文化进化与行为经济学领域的多项实验始终发现，西方人群中存在对社会信息的利用不足现象，且该现象看似适配不良。本研究通过实验证实，人们对社会学习的应用存在文化差异，这一发现或可解释上述研究结论间的矛盾。在一项旨在评估社会信息利用适应性的人工制品设计任务中，中国大陆人群的社会学习倾向显著高于英国人群。香港民众以及旅居英国的华人移民在社会信息运用上与英国人群体相近，这表明上述群体因接触西方文化（原文末尾截断为cul），近期出现了从社会学习向非社会学习的转变。