Article,
The evolution of conformist transmission in social learning when the environment changes periodically
Theoretical Population Biology, 72 (1): 52--66 (2007)
Abstract
Conformity is often observed in human social learning. Social learners
preferentially imitate the majority or most common behavior in many
situations, though the strength of conformity varies with the situation.
Why has such a psychological tendency evolved? I investigate this
problem by extending a standard model of social learning evolution
with infinite environmental states (Feldman, M.W., Aoki, K., Kumm,
J., 1996. Individual versus social learning: evolutionary analysis
in a fluctuating environment. Anthropol. Sci. 104, 209-231) to include
conformity bias. I mainly focus on the relationship between the strength
of conformity bias that evolves and environmental stability, which
is one of the most important factors in the evolution of social learning.
Using the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) approach, I show that
conformity always evolves when environmental stability and the cost
of adopting a wrong behavior are small, though environmental stability
and the cost of individual learning both negatively affect the strength
of conformity. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
