Unpredictable benefits of social information can lead to the evolution of individual differences in social learning

Human ecological success is often attributed to our capacity for social learning, which facilitates the spread of adaptive behaviours through populations. This paper presents an evolutionary model showing that individual variation in social learning can emerge if the benefits of social learning are unpredictable. Unpredictability selects for flexible developmental programmes that allow individuals to update their reliance on social learning based on previous experiences. This developmental flexibility causes some individuals to consistently rely more heavily on social learning than others. The model demonstrates this mechanism across three scenarios, investigating the impact of different sources of uncertainty about the usefulness of social learning. Results show how evolution shapes how individuals learn to learn from others, with profound effects on cultural diversity.

Pieter van den Berg, TuongVan Vu, Lucas Molleman