Personality predicts innovation and social learning in children; Implications for cultural evolution

Innovation and social learning are the pillars of cultural evolution, allowing cultural behaviours to cumulatively advance over generations. Yet, little is known about individual differences in the use of social and asocial information. We examined whether personality influenced children’s propensity to observe others or independently generate solutions to novel problems. Conscientiousness was associated with electing for no demonstrations, while agreeableness was associated with opting for demonstrations. For children receiving demonstrations, openness to experience consistently predicted deviation from observed methods. Children who opted for no demonstrations were also more likely than those opting for demonstrations to exhibit tool manufacture on an innovation challenge and displayed higher creativity. These results highlight how new cultural traditions emerge, establish and advance by identifying which individuals generate new cultural variants in populations and which are influent...创新与社会学习是文化演化的核心支柱，使得文化行为能够在代际间实现累积式演进。然而，当前学界对个体在社会信息与非社会信息使用上的个体差异仍缺乏充分研究。本研究旨在探究人格特质是否会影响儿童观察他人，或是独立生成全新问题解决方案的倾向。结果显示，尽责性（Conscientiousness）与主动拒绝观摩示范操作呈显著相关，而宜人性（Agreeableness）则与选择观摩示范操作相关。对于观摩了示范操作的儿童而言，经验开放性（Openness to Experience）可稳定预测其偏离所观察到的操作方法的程度。未选择观摩示范操作的儿童，相较于选择观摩示范操作的儿童，更有可能在创新挑战任务中完成工具制作，且展现出更高的创造力水平。本研究结果揭示了新的文化传统如何通过识别群体中哪些个体能够催生新型文化变体、哪些个体具备影响力，从而实现诞生、确立与演进的。