Copying fideliy of functional and non-functional features in ni-Vanuatu children: A transmission chain study.

Observational learning plays a key role in cultural transmission. Previous transmission chain experiments have shown that children are able to maintain information across multiple generations through observational learning. It still remains unclear how the transmission of functional vs. non-functional information and the effect of being observed unfold across age in different communities. Here, we examine children's copying fidelity in observational learning of 5- to 13-year-olds from five different communities in Vanuatu, both individually (n = 263, 144 boys) and throughout a transmission chain of five to six children (n = 324, 178 boys). We additionally varied the functionality of the feature being copied (shape vs. color) and the copying context (observed vs. unobserved). Further, we also study developmental and cultural variation in the interaction of features and conditions. We find that children transmit the functional feature shape more faithfully than the non-functional feature color, both in the dyadic transitions as well as the transmission chains with an increasing tendency to do so as they get older. The age patterns show greater variation between communities for color than for shape. Overall, we find that being observed shows no uniform effects but influences transmission differently across communities. Our study shows that children are prone to passing on a functional feature across multiple generations of peers. Children copy non-functional features as well, but with lower fidelity. In sum, our results show children's high propensity and developing abilities for observational learning, ultimately allowing for effective cultural transmission.

Expanding the understanding of majority-bias in children's social learning.

Prior experiments with children across seven different societies have indicated U-shaped age patterns in the likelihood of copying majority demonstrations. It is unclear which learning strategies underlie the observed responses that create these patterns. Here we broaden the understanding of children's learning strategies by: (1) exploring social learning patterns among 6-13-year-olds (n = 270) from ethnolinguistically varied communities in Vanuatu; (2) comparing these data with those reported from other societies (n = 629), and (3) re-analysing our and previous data based on a theoretically plausible set of underlying strategies using Bayesian methods. We find higher rates of social learning in children from Vanuatu, a country with high linguistic and cultural diversity. Furthermore, our results provide statistical evidence for modest U-shaped age patterns for a more clearly delineated majority learning strategy across the current and previously investigated societies, suggesting that the developmental mechanisms structuring majority bias are cross-culturally highly recurrent and hence a fundamental feature of early human social learning.

Conformity decreases throughout middle childhood among ni-Vanuatu children: An intracultural comparison.

Multiple studies have shown that children conform to majorities in perceptual judgment tasks against their better knowledge. However, these studies report contradictory results about how conformity develops over age. Here, we study variation in conformity over the course of middle childhood: we examined potential informational and normative motivations underlying conformity, as well as intracultural variability in their age patterns. We measured conformity in both a public and a private setting among 5- to 11-year-olds from eight different communities in Vanuatu (n = 125, 59 boys), a highly diverse society in the South Pacific. We also explored whether selected sociodemographic variables help to explain individual variation in children's conformity. Conformity is lower in both public and private settings the older ni-Vanuatu children are, with conformity in public settings being subject to more developmental and intracultural variation. We infer that normative conformity is more variable than informational conformity. Moreover, we find that children in higher school classes conform less. Our study combines a developmental perspective with an intracultural comparison, and demonstrates that both the publicness of the experimental situation and intracultural variability are important for the understanding of the age patterns of conformity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).