10.5061/DRYAD.10G95
Burton-Chellew, Maxwell N.
University of Oxford
El Mouden, Claire
University of Oxford
West, Stuart A.
University of Oxford
Data from: Social learning and the demise of costly cooperation in humans
Dryad
dataset
2017
Prestige bias
regression to the mean
Altruism
Conformity
2017-03-23T06:11:44Z
2017-03-23T06:11:44Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0067
4022188 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Humans have a sophisticated ability to learn from others, termed social
learning, which has allowed us to spread over the planet, construct
complex societies, and travel to the moon. It has been hypothesized that
social learning has played a pivotal role in making human societies
cooperative, by favouring cooperation even when it is not favoured by
genetical selection. However, this hypothesis lacks direct experimental
testing, and the opposite prediction has also been made, that social
learning disfavours cooperation. We experimentally tested how different
aspects of social learning affect the level of cooperation in public-goods
games. We found that: (i) social information never increased cooperation
and usually led to decreased cooperation; (ii) cooperation was lowest when
individuals could observe how successful individuals behaved; and (iii)
cooperation declined because individuals preferred to copy successful
individuals, who cooperated less, rather than copy common behaviours.
Overall, these results suggest that individuals use social information to
try and improve their own success, and that this can lead to lower levels
of cooperation.
SL_ms_final_Variables_PUBLIC_COPYData set including all the variables used
in analyses for this paperSL_ms_final_results_a_baseline_cooperation
copyCopy of SPSS analyses for Results section
ASL_ms_final_results_b_social_learning_and_cooperationCopy of SPSS
analyses for Results Section
BSL_ms_final_results_c_using_social_informationCopy of SPSS analyses for
Results Section CSL_ms_final_results_d_mechanisms_of_social_learningCopy
of SPSS analyses for Results Section
DSL_ms_final_results_e_learning_about_people_or_about_payoffsCopy of SPSS
analyses for Results Section ESL_ms_final_results_f_alternative_testsCopy
of SPSS analyses for Results Section FSL_ms_final_results_Si_ESMCopy of
SPSS analyses for Results Section
ESMSL_ms_final_results_Supp_info_correlations_TableS1Copy of SPSS analyses
for Results Section ESM TABLE
1SL_ms_final_results_Supp_info_correlations_TableS2Copy of SPSS analyses
for Results Section ESM TABLE
2SL_ms_final_results_Si_ESM_calculating_attractionCopy of SPSS code and
analyses for calculating attraction variablesSL_Ms_public_datasetExcel
copy version of SPSS dataset