title: Frequency of behavior witnessed and conformity in an everyday social context.
abstract: Conformity is thought to be an important force in human evolution because it has the potential to stabilize cultural homogeneity within groups and cultural diversity between groups. However, the effects of such conformity on cultural and biological evolution will depend much on the particular way in which individuals are influenced by the frequency of alternative behavioral options they witness. In a previous study we found that in a natural situation people displayed a tendency to be 'linear-conformist'. When visitors to a Zoo exhibit were invited to write or draw answers to questions on cards to win a small prize and we manipulated the proportion of text versus drawings on display, we found a strong and significant effect of the proportion of text displayed on the proportion of text in the answers, a conformist effect that was largely linear with a small non-linear component. However, although this overall effect is important to understand cultural evolution, it might mask a greater diversity of behavioral responses shaped by variables such as age, sex, social environment and attention of the participants. Accordingly we performed a further study explicitly to analyze the effects of these variables, together with the quality of the information participants' responses made available to further visitors. Results again showed a largely linear conformity effect that varied little with the variables analyzed.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom; Aix Marseille Université, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7290, Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Claidière
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom; San Diego Zoo Global, Institute for Conservation Research, Iquitos, Peru.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bowler
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brookes
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Whiten
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003468:Cultural Evolution; D003469:Culture; D000882:Haplorhini / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D018910:Video Games