Damian Sendler In the last decade, the idea that other animals engage in behaviors that are culturally determined has gained more traction [2–13]. The emergence of new claims about animal culture has sparked a debate about the classification of humans as ‘ultra’ cultural. To put it another way, unlike non-human cultural forms, human cultural forms are: (1) cumulative, in that new innovations are gradually added to the collective body of knowledge and skill of a population, resulting in ever-evolving repertoires; (2) distinct from non-human cultural forms; and (3) shaped more strongly by social learning than non-human cultural forms [14–16].
Damian Jacob Sendler Even if we disregard the environmental harm we’ve done to the planet, our ability to create new ways of doing things that are highly diverse and adaptive to the context in which they’re used is truly remarkable and unmatched by any other species on the planet. Because of our abilities and strategies to navigate the social world rather than the physical world, we have been able to achieve this success [17–20]. Humans, as individuals and as a species, must be understood in terms of how we create and navigate culture—the constructed social and physical environment in which we live. As a starting point, we argue that understanding the differences between human and non-human social capacities, as well as the ontogeny of those abilities, and their local manifestations in different cultural contexts, is essential. Only by combining these two viewpoints will we be able to grasp the earliest origins of human culture.
Dr. Sendler Although it is common practice in psychology to compare children across age groups, the comparison of human versus non-human performance, and comparisons across human cultures, is rare, and the combination of both is almost non-existent [21]. It is clear from the contributions of Heyes [22], Schmelz & Call [23] and Keller [24] that attempts to understand the evolution of human mentality by integrating research from developmental, comparative, and cross-cultural psychology are of enormous value. Using this triadic approach, we will argue for its value and provide insight into some of the key elements that make us human: social learning, cooperation, prosociality and the ability to understand the thoughts or feelings of others.
It seems obvious that a model of human (as opposed to non-human) social learning would be included in any search for an account of human culture. When faced with the need or desire to learn new skills or behaviors, humans are extremely adept at gathering information from others. Studies have shown that infants can learn new actions and construct simple tools just by observing others at six months and 12 months of age, proving that our social learning skills are formed early in life [25]. From this point on, children’s ability and proclivity for social learning skyrocket, to the point where they engage in an activity now known as “overimitation” [26].
It is common for kids to over-imitate adults when interacting with a new object, and this includes actions that have no apparent connection to the outcome. As early as 12 months old, children witnessed an adult open a closed box by disengaging a latch located on the front of the box [27]. [20] The demonstration was made more difficult by the adult’s use of an oddball object, despite the fact that the box could easily be opened by hand. Infants as young as 12 months old observed the adult demonstrator and then tried to open the box with their hands. 24 month olds overwhelmingly attempted to open the box by using an object, frequently persisting in this comparatively unproductive approach to such an extent that they were unsuccessful.
Overimitation has been documented in a growing number of laboratories [28–32] and cultural groups [33–35] in subsequent studies. It is not uncommon for preschoolers to over-imitate, even when the goal is no longer met (e.g., wiping a stick across a box’s top after the box has been opened and the inside of the box is easily accessible), and even when the goal is no longer met (e.g., wiping the stick across a box’s top after the box has been opened and there is a toy inside).
Documented cultural differences have been found in social learning proclivities and processes (e.g. [37,38]). Though the phenomenon of overimitation seems to be universal, it appears to be a human trait that transcends contexts (for an exception, see [39]). Given that overimitation is common and stable across cultures, it is possible that it serves as an enabling factor for human culture. However, there isn’t enough evidence to support this claim based solely on developmental and cross-cultural data. Human social learning would also necessitate the existence of overimitation. So, in other closely related species, such as non-human great apes, this trait may be less prominent or absent altogether.
Children as young as three years old and young, wild-born chimpanzees in captivity were taught to use a stick by an adult demonstrator in Horner & Whiten’s [40] now-classic experiment. The experimenters had the adult demonstrater poke a stick through the box’s top and then poke a stick through the bottom. Because the box was opaque, the participants couldn’t see the link between the actions taking place inside and the final result. Both chimpanzees and children were able to replicate all of the demonstrated actions when they were given the opportunity to play with the box on their own. Another step was taken to make it clear that the stick didn’t get in contact with any reward-retrievable area when it was inserted into its top hole, so the opaque box was replaced with an open one, allowing each internal action to be clearly seen. In other words, there was no connection between the outcome and the action taken in the top hole. The chimpanzees acted as if the initial action had no bearing on their behavior now that it was clear that it had no causal effect. As a result, the children’s actions mirrored the model’s, including the blatantly unnecessary inserting of the stick into the top hole (see also [41]). These findings support the theory that overimitation is a species-specific enabler of human culture. Triadic approaches to human culture that combine development, cross-cultural and comparative comparisons have solved a piece of the puzzle that was previously unsolvable.
How does this difference in overimitation come about, then, naturally? The lack of overimitation in non-human animals suggests a fundamental, heritable gap between human and non-human social learning abilities. Heyes’s [22] review of the debate between active intermodal matching and associative sequence learning accounts of imitation provides an answer to this question. Whether or not we have a’module’ for imitating our social and cultural environments is one of the major points of contention between these perspectives, as noted by Heyes.
Damian Sendler
Triadic thinking can yield new insights. Firstly, Horner and Whiten’s comparison of humans and chimpanzees shows that our closest living relatives have the ability to learn from others, but Pan troglodytes’ approach to social learning is more pragmatic than that of Homo sapiens. Information that has been given to us by others is no more or no less valuable than information that we have gathered on our own [42], and actions that have no connection to the events in question are simply ignored as unimportant. A copy of an action that serves no useful purpose would not be made. [42] Humans on the other hand, are more receptive to information from others and pay more attention to the non-functional aspects of a demonstration. This suggests that social learning may not be primarily a result of a gap in the ability to learn from others, but rather a difference in the motivations underlying social learning in humans and chimpanzees. Humans, in contrast to chimpanzees, focus on the social consequences of social learning when they learn from others [17,18,43–47]. According to previous research, children do not begin to overimitate in earnest until their second year of life [29,43–54], but as more and more evidence mounts, it appears they do so for social and/or normative reasons. And last but not least, the fact that overimitation occurs in a wide range of cultural contexts [33–35] suggests that the sociocultural environment that serves as a resource for acquiring human-specific overimitation in social learning is shared by the majority of human communities.
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler According to another aspect of social learning, the influence of the majority on individual social learning can be found. Researchers found that chimpanzees and humans alike tend to copy the actions of their peers, even if the alternatives are equally familiar, equally productive, and equally frequent [55]. A phenomenon dubbed ‘conformity’ has been observed in humans, in which people are willing to give up a behavior or judgment they know to be effective or correct in order to conform to what others are doing. In spite of claims by some researchers that non-human primates exhibit human-like conformity [59–62], other explanations such as primacy effects, conservatism, incomplete sampling, and random copying have yet to be ruled out [63–65]. Like overimitation, this difference may not be due to a fundamental discontinuity in the consideration of majority information in social learning, but rather a difference in motivational focus. If they have a different but equally effective strategy available to them, chimpanzees will not follow the majority when learning a new skill [66,67,68]. Even in the worst-case scenario, people still go along with the herd, but only if the majority is watching them—if they are allowed to act privately, without the majority watching them—do conformity rates drop [56,67,69]. As a result, it appears that the difference between human and non-human social learning is driven by social considerations once again. Conformity, like overimitation, is widespread across cultures [70] and occurs early in development [67,69,71,72]. However, the degree to which it occurs varies. Children in the West are becoming increasingly socially conscious as they grow older, which suggests that chimpanzees do not. As a result, there appears to be a disconnect between human and nonhuman social learning and culture.
The development of shared intentionality, which occurs in collaborative interactions where participants have a collective goal and coordinated action roles to achieve that goal, has also been an important factor in the emergence of human culture [73,74]. These characteristics have been argued to be central to the’socio-cognitive niche’ that has shaped our species’ evolution [20]. Because children naturally gravitate toward group activities from an early age [75], they acquire the social skills and proclivity for collaboration that are essential to human culture [76,77]. Children as young as 18 months old were given a task that required them to work together in order to operate separate handles embedded in an apparatus that was too far apart for one child to operate on its own. An animated musical toy was activated by pulling the handles together. Children as young as 30 months had little interest in cooperating with one another, but those same 30-month-olds were keen observers of the movements and locations of their partners and worked cooperatively to achieve the same goal. Children were found to be far more cooperative than chimpanzees when confronted with a task that required multiple steps to complete, according to Dean et al. [79]. They teamed up, shared ideas, and got better results as a result.
Children’s early cooperative abilities are frequently described as being extremely similar across different human populations. While children’s willingness and ability to cooperate may vary by culture [80,81] and the rules of conduct that govern cooperation [82], it appears that children of all cultures demonstrate similar cooperative abilities at roughly the same age. For example, Callaghan et al. [38] found that children from different cultures performed similarly in a variety of collaborative tasks in early childhood.
Therefore, should we consider cooperation to be an enabling condition for uniquely human culture given the relevance of cooperation for human culture, the early onset and the absence of cross-cultural variation? If this is the case, should we be surprised if it turns out to be a human autopomorphy, a phenomenon that only exists in humans? A qualified no, as explained by Schmelz & Call [23], is the correct response to the question raised. If you want to get chimpanzees to work together, you’ll need to provide them with a reward or incentive. When it comes to children, on the other hand, social interaction can be enough to keep them engaged. Children’s willingness to cooperate can vary depending on their cultural background, as previously mentioned [35,80,83]. A more nuanced understanding of the role of human cooperation in explaining our unique culture is necessitated by the triangulation, and this time it appears to be a difference in motivation rather than a fundamental difference in capability.
Children and chimpanzees approach collaborative tasks differently, and this extends to prosocial acts. It has long been known that infants and young children have a prosocial disposition [84]. Toys can be shared with an unfamiliar adult at the 15-month mark, and by 18 months, infants are capable of providing instrumental help, which is helping another person achieve a goal [87]. Brownell et al. [88] gave 18- and 25-month-old infants the task of pulling one of two handles attached to a pair of trays in order to get a reward as they got older [89,90]. An adult accomplice was given a loaded tray when one of the handles was pulled; a loaded tray was given only to the child who had been selected. Compared to the 18-month-olds, who required more verbal cues from the adult to recognize the shared goal, the 25-month-olds opted for the prosocial option, delivering food to both themselves and the adult at a higher rate. Using a similar design, House et al. [89] found high levels of prosocial behavior among 3- to 8-year-olds, indicating that spontaneous prosocial behavior is well-established throughout childhood. A growing body of research shows children are willing to put themselves in harm’s way in order to help others [90,91].
Damian Sendler We must, however, take a more nuanced stance when considering these data in light of their cultural context. Culture-specific affirmation of prosocial behavior is a part of the ontogenetic affirmation. Despite the fact that children in all communities have a prosocial disposition, as they grow older, they will adapt their behavior to the cross-culturally variable prosocial norms of their community. [92] House et al. Children aged 4–9 years from seven different cultures were studied by Blake et al. [93], who examined their reactions to disadvantageous and advantageous inequity aversion (DI and AI, respectively) when they were given the choice between receiving less than their peers or receiving more than their peers (Canada, India, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Uganda and the US). Discrimination against women was found in all societies, with cultural differences in its emergence, ranging from the United States to Canada, and finally to Mexico. Furthermore, AI was only developed in three countries: the United States, Canada, and Uganda, and its prevalence grew with the aging population in these countries.
Children’s prosocial behavior and reactions to unfairness have culturally specific pathways, which are likely the result of varying socialization strategies that support various culture-specific objectives. It’s laid out in compelling detail in Keller’s [24] paper here. In contrast to children raised in societies where autonomy is highly valued, those raised in societies where a strong emphasis is placed on relatedness instill a sense of urgency in their children to share with others.
Damian Jacob Sendler
In spite of this, as of right now, the human tendency to help stands in stark contrast to the behavior of chimpanzees, who, as detailed by Schmelz & Call [23], require some kind of incentive to help others. It appears that chimpanzees have a more limited capacity for altruism than children raised in societies that place a higher value on prosocial behavior. Social factors are not a driving force in chimpanzee cooperation, as is the case with their propensity to mimic. Any shared intentionality as expressed in truly collaborative and joint attentional activities where participants have a shared goal and joint attention is missing [94]. Interactions involving shared intentionality alter human cognition in fundamental ways, according to Moll & Tomasello [95]. In the first place, it establishes a sense of perspective. As an example, think about how infants might learn that another person may see the same situation in a different light. As a result of these foundations, a core human capacity for understanding others and the development of what is known as a theory of mind springs forth from these foundations.
“Theory of mind” refers to a “common sense understanding” of the world [97,98] that acknowledges the existence of a variety of mental states, such as thoughts, beliefs, and desires, in both oneself and others [99]. These mental states are thought to be the basis for our actions. People behave in the world not according to how it really is, but according to how they see it. Children must learn that other people’s mental states can differ from their own as well as from reality in order to develop a comprehensive theory of mind. That is to say, other people’s mental states are influenced to some extent by their knowledge of past events, which comes from a variety of sources.
These tasks have become the standard tool for measuring the development of a child’s “theory of mind” because of this reasoning. Toys are placed in Box 1 by Agent X, who then leaves the testing environment with the child’s favorite toy. As soon as Agent Y is introduced, he takes the toy from Box 1 and puts it in Box 2 before leaving. As soon as Agent X arrives, children are asked where they should begin searching. When asked where Agent X will first look for the object, most Western children over the age of 4 will correctly answer “Box 1,” while younger children will incorrectly answer “Box 2.” A number of studies have found that in non-Western societies, there is considerable variation in the onset of false belief [100,101].
The realization that theory of mind does not suddenly appear at around 4 years with the onset of success on false belief tasks is more important than the question of variation in the onset of false belief reasoning. From 2 to 6 years old, Western children go through a developmental progression in which they master various mental state concepts sequentially, according to Wellman and Liu [103]. Among these steps are an appreciation for the fact that others may not have access to the right information (Knowledge Access), an understanding of false belief, and an understanding that they can deliberately hide how they feel (Hidden Emotions). It is important to note that using the Wellman and Liu scale has revealed cultural differences in the order in which each of these steps is learned. While Iranian children outperformed their Australian counterparts in terms of knowledge access, they lacked understanding of diverse beliefs, according to Shahaeian and colleagues [104]. (see also [105]). Studies comparing Chinese and American children [106] found a similar course of development. As a result, while it is clear that humans can learn to recognize other people’s erroneous beliefs, the path by which they do so is complex and poorly understood. For other closely related species to have false belief understanding, we would have to consider it a species-specific enabling condition for human culture.
Research into non-human primates’ capacity for theory of mind is well-documented by Schmelz & Call [23] in an engrossing paper. According to their findings, chimpanzees have not yet been exposed to the appropriate context in which they could pass a false belief test. It’s also possible that humans are the only species to possess this particular ability. Continuing cross-pollination between academic disciplines is essential in this context. A primate version of the Wellman and Liu scale has not yet been developed, to our knowledge. There are many obstacles in the way, but if it can be done, it would provide a wealth of information about the minds of our closest living relatives while also providing insight into the human mind and its capabilities.
