Children conform to the behavior of peers; other great apes stick with what they know.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
All primates learn things from conspecifics socially, but it is not clear whether they conform to the behavior of these conspecifics--if conformity is defined as overriding individually acquired behavioral tendencies in order to copy peers' behavior. In the current study, chimpanzees, orangutans, and 2-year-old human children individually acquired a problem-solving strategy. They then watched several conspecific peers demonstrate an alternative strategy. The children switched to this new, socially demonstrated strategy in roughly half of all instances, whereas the other two great-ape species almost never adjusted their behavior to the majority's. In a follow-up study, children switched much more when the peer demonstrators were still present than when they were absent, which suggests that their conformity arose at least in part from social motivations. These results demonstrate an important difference between the social learning of humans and great apes, a difference that might help to account for differences in human and nonhuman cultures.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Haun, DBM; Rekers, Y; Tomasello, M
Published Date
- December 2014
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 25 / 12
Start / End Page
- 2160 - 2167
PubMed ID
- 25355648
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1467-9280
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0956-7976
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1177/0956797614553235
Language
- eng