TY - JOUR
T1 - Irrelevant-action imitation is short-term and contextual
T2 - Evidence from two under-studied populations
AU - Kline, Michelle A.
AU - Gervais, Matthew M.
AU - Moya, Cristina
AU - Boyd, Robert T.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded in part by a US National Institute of Health Challenge Grant, US National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, and a Leakey Foundation Research Grant. In addition, this research was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. We thank members of the Experimental Biological Anthropology lab at UC Los Angeles for comments on research design. We thank our hosts and participants in Huatasani, Peru and on Yasawa Island, Fiji for their hospitality, without which none of this work would be possible.
Funding Information:
This work was funded in part by a US National Institute of Health Challenge Grant, US National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, and a Leakey Foundation Research Grant. In addition, this research was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. We thank members of the Experimental Biological Anthropology lab at UC Los Angeles for comments on research design. We thank our hosts and participants in Huatasani, Peru and on Yasawa Island, Fiji for their hospitality, without which none of this work would be possible.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2020/5/1
Y1 - 2020/5/1
N2 - Across the lifespan and across populations, humans ‘overimitate’ causally unnecessary behaviors. Such irrelevant-action imitation facilitates faithful cultural transmission, but its immediate benefits to the imitator are controversial. Over short time scales, irrelevant-action imitation may bootstrap artifact exploration or interpersonal affiliation, and over longer time scales it may facilitate acquisition of either causal models or social conventions. To investigate these putative functions, we recruited community samples from two under-studied populations: Yasawa, Fiji, and Huatasani, Peru. We use a two-action puzzle box: first after a video demonstration, and again one month later. Treating age as a continuous variable, we reveal divergent developmental trajectories across sites. Yasawans (44 adults, M = 39.9 years, 23 women; 42 children, M = 9.8 years, 26 girls) resemble documented patterns, with irrelevant-action imitation increasing across childhood and plateauing in adulthood. In contrast, Huatasaneños (48 adults, M = 37.6 years, 33 women; 47 children, M = 9.3 years, 13 girls) evince a parabolic trajectory: adults at the site show the lowest irrelevant-action imitation of any demographic set in our sample. In addition, all age sets in both populations reduce their irrelevant actions at Time 2, but do not reduce their relevant-action imitation or goal attainment. Taken together, and considering the local cultural contexts, our results suggest that irrelevant-action imitation serves a short-term function and is sensitive to the social context of the demonstration.
AB - Across the lifespan and across populations, humans ‘overimitate’ causally unnecessary behaviors. Such irrelevant-action imitation facilitates faithful cultural transmission, but its immediate benefits to the imitator are controversial. Over short time scales, irrelevant-action imitation may bootstrap artifact exploration or interpersonal affiliation, and over longer time scales it may facilitate acquisition of either causal models or social conventions. To investigate these putative functions, we recruited community samples from two under-studied populations: Yasawa, Fiji, and Huatasani, Peru. We use a two-action puzzle box: first after a video demonstration, and again one month later. Treating age as a continuous variable, we reveal divergent developmental trajectories across sites. Yasawans (44 adults, M = 39.9 years, 23 women; 42 children, M = 9.8 years, 26 girls) resemble documented patterns, with irrelevant-action imitation increasing across childhood and plateauing in adulthood. In contrast, Huatasaneños (48 adults, M = 37.6 years, 33 women; 47 children, M = 9.3 years, 13 girls) evince a parabolic trajectory: adults at the site show the lowest irrelevant-action imitation of any demographic set in our sample. In addition, all age sets in both populations reduce their irrelevant actions at Time 2, but do not reduce their relevant-action imitation or goal attainment. Taken together, and considering the local cultural contexts, our results suggest that irrelevant-action imitation serves a short-term function and is sensitive to the social context of the demonstration.
KW - culture and development
KW - overimitation
KW - social learning
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U2 - 10.1111/desc.12903
DO - 10.1111/desc.12903
M3 - Article
C2 - 31505090
AN - SCOPUS:85074431933
SN - 1363-755X
VL - 23
JO - Developmental Science
JF - Developmental Science
IS - 3
M1 - e12903
ER -