Effects of conformism on the cultural evolution of social behaviour.

ABSTRACT: Models of cultural evolution study how the distribution of cultural traits changes over time. The dynamics of cultural evolution strongly depends on the way these traits are transmitted between individuals by social learning. Two prominent forms of social learning are payoff-based learning (imitating others that have higher payoffs) and conformist learning (imitating locally common behaviours). How payoff-based and conformist learning affect the cultural evolution of cooperation is currently a matter of lively debate, but few studies systematically analyse the interplay of these forms of social learning. Here we perform such a study by investigating how the interaction of payoff-based and conformist learning affects the outcome of cultural evolution in three social contexts. First, we deve

SUBMITTER: Molleman L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3707918 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature