title: Do Children Copy an Expert or a Majority? Examining Selective Learning in Instrumental and Normative Contexts.
abstract: This study examined whether instrumental and normative learning contexts differentially influence 4- to 7-year-old children's social learning strategies; specifically, their dispositions to copy an expert versus a majority consensus. Experiment 1 (N = 44) established that children copied a relatively competent "expert" individual over an incompetent individual in both kinds of learning context. In experiment 2 (N = 80) we then tested whether children would copy a competent individual versus a majority, in each of the two different learning contexts. Results showed that individual children differed in strategy, preferring with significant consistency across two different test trials to copy either the competent individual or the majority. This study is the first to show that children prefer to copy more competent individuals when shown competing methods of achieving an instrumental goal (Experiment 1) and provides new evidence that children, at least in our "individualist" culture, may consistently express either a competency or majority bias in learning both instrumental and normative information (Experiment 2). This effect was similar in the instrumental and normative learning contexts we applied.
authors: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
authors: Emily R R
authors: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2832-4819
authors: ER
authors: Burdett
authors: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.|Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.
authors: Amanda J
authors: AJ
authors: Lucas
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.|Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
authors: Daphna
authors: D
authors: Buchsbaum
authors: School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
authors: Nicola
authors: N
authors: McGuigan
authors: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
authors: Lara A
authors: LA
authors: Wood
authors: Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
authors: Andrew
authors: A
authors: Whiten
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male