Montrey, M., & Shultz, T. R. (2022).
Psychological Science, 33(1), 165–174.
https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211032224
Abstract
Surprisingly little is known about how social groups influence social learning. Although several studies have shown that people prefer to copy in-group members, these studies have failed to resolve whether group membership genuinely affects who is copied or whether group membership merely correlates with other known factors, such as similarity and familiarity. Using the minimal-group paradigm, we disentangled these effects in an online social-learning game. In a sample of 540 adults, we found a robust in-group-copying bias that (a) was bolstered by a preference for observing in-group members; (b) overrode perceived reliability, warmth, and competence; (c) grew stronger when social information was scarce; and (d) even caused cultural divergence between intermixed groups. These results suggest that people genuinely employ a copy-the-in-group social-learning strategy, which could help explain how inefficient behaviors spread through social learning and how humans maintain the cultural diversity needed for cumulative cultural evolution.
Discussion
Although previous studies have found an apparent in-group bias in social learning, they have failed to resolve whether this constitutes a genuine social-learning strategy or a mere confluence of other factors (Buttelmann et al., 2013; Howard et al., 2015). Our study disentangled group membership from similarity and familiarity by assigning group membership at random. We found that rather than eliminating the preference for in-group members, this approach resulted in a robust in-group-copying bias, which (a) was bolstered by a tendency to observe in-group members, (b) overrode participants’ stated beliefs, (c) grew stronger when social information was scarce, and (d) even caused cultural divergence between intermixed groups. Taken together, our findings suggest that people genuinely employ a copy-the-in-group strategy and that group membership has both a direct and indirect effect on copying.
Why might a copy-the-in-group strategy have evolved in the first place? One reason could be that it allowed humans to rapidly adopt and vigorously maintain group norms that enhance coordination (McElreath et al., 2003) or promote cooperation (Boyd & Richerson, 2009). Another reason could be that social learning is useful only to the extent that adopting other people’s behavior yields similar payoffs (Laland, 2004). For example, copying out-group members could be less efficient or even counterproductive if groups differ in terms of what behavior is punished or rewarded. Finally, such a strategy could also have evolved because it minimized the risk of deception. Because social learning is essentially information scrounging (Kameda & Nakanishi, 2002), in which the copier benefits from other people’s knowledge without incurring the same costs, knowledgeable individuals have an incentive to mislead others. However, this incentive is minimized when observed individuals have a vested interest in the copier’s success. This holds true in kin relationships (Laland, 2004) and likely generalizes to other settings, such as intergroup competition.