How to learn about teaching: An evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals
Abstract
The human species is more reliant on cultural adaptation than any other species, but it is unclear how observational learning can give rise to the faithful transmission of cultural adaptations. One possibility is that teaching facilitates accurate social transmission by narrowing the range of inferences that learners make. However, there is wide disagreement about how to define teaching, and how to interpret the empirical evidence for teaching across cultures and species. In this article I argue that disputes about the nature and prevalence of teaching across human societies and nonhuman animals are based on a number of deep-rooted theoretical differences between fields, as well as on important differences in how teaching is defined. To reconcile these disparate bodies of research, I review the three major approaches to the study of teaching - mentalistic, culture-based, and functionalist - and outline the research questions about teaching that each addresses. I then argue for a new, integrated framework that differentiates between teaching types according to the specific adaptive problems that each type solves, and apply this framework to restructure current empirical evidence on teaching in humans and nonhuman animals. This integrative framework generates novel insights, with broad implications for the study of the evolution of teaching, including the roles of cognitive constraints and cooperative dilemmas in how and when teaching evolves. Finally, I propose an explanation for why some types of teaching are uniquely human, and discuss new directions for research motivated by this framework.
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Adults and knowledgeable children appear to be adapted to behave in ways that scaffold the learning of naïve children.
“Adults and knowledgeable children also appear to be adapted to behave in ways that scaffold the learning of naïve children (Csibra & Gergely 2011;Dean et al. 2012;Kline 2015).”
From Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: a sketch of the evidence. (2016) · cites this paper as Kline 2015
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- Authors
- Kline, M. A.
- Affiliations
- Arizona State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kline, Michelle Ann
- ORCID
- Kline, Michelle Ann
- Venue
- Behavioral and Brain Sciences
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2014-05-23
- Volume
- 38
- Pages
- e31-e31
- ISSN
- 0140-525X (ISSN-L)
- 1469-1825
- OpenAlex
- W2064673991
- Cited by
- 486
- References
- 171
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 78 · 2019: 51 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 3
- FWCI
- 20.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behavioral and Brain Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- teacher behavior, evolution of teaching, observational learning, cultural transmission, social learning, teaching type, cognitive limitations, functionalism, evolutionary framework
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Animals, Humans, Learning, Social Behavior, Teaching, Theory of Mind
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