While social learning is widespread, indiscriminate copying of others is rarely beneficial.
Theory suggests that individuals should be selective in what, when, and whom they copy, by …

Learning the value of stimuli and actions from others—social learning—adaptively
contributes to individual survival and plays a key role in cultural evolution. We review …

Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and
complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating …

The last two decades have seen an explosion in research analysing cultural change as a
Darwinian evolutionary process. Here I provide an overview of the theory of cultural …

Social learning (learning through observation or interaction with other individuals) is
widespread in nature and is central to the remarkable success of humanity, yet it remains …

Researchers from diverse backgrounds are converging on the view that human evolution
has been shaped by gene–culture interactions. Theoretical biologists have used population …

Research into social learning (learning from others) has expanded significantly in recent
years, not least because of productive interactions between theoretical and empirical …

Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species.
Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test …

It is often assumed in experiments and models that social learning abilities–how often
individuals copy others, plus who and how they copy–are species-typical. Yet there is …

Evolutionary theory is one of the most wide-ranging and inspiring scientific ideas, and it
offers a battery of methods that can be used to interpret human behaviour. However …