The DOI matches its Crossref record; 7 of the 7 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
THE EVOLUTION OF TEACHING
Abstract
Teaching, alongside imitation, is widely thought to underlie the success of humanity by allowing high-fidelity transmission of information, skills, and technology between individuals, facilitating both cumulative knowledge gain and normative culture. Yet, it remains a mystery why teaching should be widespread in human societies but extremely rare in other animals. We explore the evolution of teaching using simple genetic models in which a single tutor transmits adaptive information to a related pupil at a cost. Teaching is expected to evolve where its costs are outweighed by the inclusive fitness benefits that result from the tutor's relatives being more likely to acquire the valuable information. We find that teaching is not favored where the pupil can easily acquire the information on its own, or through copying others, or for difficult to learn traits, where teachers typically do not possess the information to pass on to relatives. This leads to a narrow range of traits for which teaching would be efficacious, which helps to explain the rarity of teaching in nature, its unusual distribution, and its highly specific nature. Further models that allow for cumulative cultural knowledge gain suggest that teaching evolved in humans because cumulative culture renders otherwise difficult-to-acquire valuable information available to teach.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“If pupils are relatives, deception or inaccuracy on the part of the tutor would undermine the indirect inclusive fitness benefits that teaching provides to the tutor (Fogarty et al., 2011).”
From The origins of language in teaching (2017) · cites this paper as Fogarty et al., 2011
In the citing paper
“Theoretical analyses show that teaching is more likely to be advantageous amongst close relatives than unrelated individuals (Fogarty et al., 2011)”
From The origins of language in teaching (2017) · cites this paper as Fogarty et al., 2011
In the citing paper
“Mathematical analyses reveal stringent conditions that must be met for teaching to evolve, but show that cumulative culture relaxes these conditions (Fogarty et al., 2011).”
From The origins of language in teaching (2017) · cites this paper as Fogarty et al., 2011
Citations
Cites
Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature02043 · Cited by 3,475
Social semantics: altruism, cooperation, mutualism, strong reciprocity and group selection.
WEST, S. A., GRIFFIN, A. S., & GARDNER, A. (2007) · Journal of Evolutionary Biology · doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01258.x · Cited by 1,889
The evolution of altruistic punishment
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S., & Richerson, P. J. (2003) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0630443100 · Cited by 1,748
Tomasello, M., & Call, J. (1997) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780195106237.001.0001 · Cited by 1,491
Cultural group selection, coevolutionary processes and large-scale cooperation
Henrich, J. (2004) · Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · doi:10.1016/s0167-2681(03)00094-5 · Cited by 1,096
Why Copy Others? Insights from the Social Learning Strategies Tournament
Rendell, L., Boyd, R., Cownden, D., Enquist, M., Eriksson, K., Feldman, M. W., Fogarty, L., Ghirlanda, S., Lillicrap, T., & Laland, K. N. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1184719 · Cited by 811
Self-citationInnateness and culture in the evolution of language
Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. L. (2007) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0608222104 · Cited by 442
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 52
- Bowles, 2004, The evolution of strong reciprocity: cooperation in heterogeneous populations, Theor. Popul. Biol, 65, 17, 10.1016/j.tpb.2003.07.001 · DOI
- Boyd, 1985, Culture and the evolutionary process
- Boyd, 1988, The evolution of reciprocity in sizable groups, J. Theor. Biol, 132, 337, 10.1016/S0022-5193(88)80219-4 · DOI
- Boyd, 2010, Coordinated punishment of defectors sustains cooperation and can proliferate when rare, Science, 328, 617, 10.1126/science.1183665 · DOI · Paper page
- Caro, 1992, Is there teaching in nonhuman animals?, Q. Rev. Biol, 67, 151, 10.1086/417553 · DOI
- Cavalli-Sforza, 1981, Cultural transmission and evolution
- Craig, 1979, Parental manipulation, kin selection, and the evolution of altruism, Evolution, 33, 319, 10.2307/2407622 · DOI
- Csibra, 2007, Teachers in the wild, Trends Cogn. Sci., 11, 95, 10.1016/j.tics.2006.12.001 · DOI
- Csibra, 2006, Attention and performance, 249
- Cornwallis, 2010, Promiscuity and the evolutionary transition to complex societies, Nature, 466, 969, 10.1038/nature09335 · DOI
- Danchin, 2004, Public information: from nosy neighbours to cultural evolution, Science, 305, 487, 10.1126/science.1098254 · DOI
- Feldman, 1992, Gene-culture coevolution: toward a general theory of vertical transmission, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, 89, 11935, 10.1073/pnas.89.24.11935 · DOI
- Frank, 1998, Foundations of social evolution, 10.1515/9780691206820 · DOI
- Franks, 2006, Teaching in tandem-running ants, Nature, 439, 153, 10.1038/439153a · DOI
- Foster, 2006, Kin selection is the key to altruism, Trends Ecol. Evol., 21, 57, 10.1016/j.tree.2005.11.020 · DOI
- Gardner, 2006, Demography, altruism and the benefits of budding, J. Evol. Biol., 19, 1707, 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01104.x · DOI
- Gintis, 2003, The hitchhiker's guide to altruism: gene-culture coevolution and the internalization of norms, J. Theor. Biol., 220, 407, 10.1006/jtbi.2003.3104 · DOI
- Grafen, 1984, Behavioural ecology, an evolutionary approach, 62
- Grafen, 1985, A geometric view of relatedness, Oxford Surv. Evol. Biol., 2, 28
- Hamilton, 1964, The genetic evolution of social behaviour, J Theor. Biol., 7, 1, 10.1016/0022-5193(64)90038-4 · DOI · Paper page
- Henrich, 2003, The evolution of cultural evolution, Evol. Anthropol., 12, 123, 10.1002/evan.10110 · DOI
- Heyes, 1996, Social learning in animals
- Hewlett, 2011, Social learning among Congo Basin hunter-gatherers, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci., 366, 1168, 10.1098/rstb.2010.0373 · DOI · Paper page
- Hoppitt, 2008, Lessons from animal teaching, Trends Ecol. Evol., 23, 486, 10.1016/j.tree.2008.05.008 · DOI
- Hrdy, 1999, Mother nature
- Kirby, 2008, Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: an experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 10681, 10.1073/pnas.0707835105 · DOI · Paper page
- Kokko, 2001, The evolution of cooperative breeding through group augmentation, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B., 268, 187, 10.1098/rspb.2000.1349 · DOI
- Laland, 2009, The question of animal culture, 10.2307/j.ctv322v4wf · DOI
- Laland, 2003, Do animals have culture?, Evol. Anthropol., 12, 150, 10.1002/evan.10111 · DOI · Paper page
- Langen, 2000, Prolonged offspring dependence and cooperative breeding in birds, Behav. Ecol., 11, 367, 10.1093/beheco/11.4.367 · DOI
- Leadbeater, 2006, Social learning: ants and the meaning of teaching, Curr. Biol., 16, R323, 10.1016/j.cub.2006.03.078 · DOI
- Lehman, 2006, The evolution of cooperation and altruism-a general framework and a classification of models, J. Evo. Biol, 19, 1365, 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01119.x · DOI
- Lehman, 2008, Cultural transmission can inhibit the evolution of altruistic helping, Am. Nat., 172, 12, 10.1086/587851 · DOI
- Lewis, 2007, Ekila: blood, bodies, and egalitarian societies, J. R. Anthropol. Inst., 14, 297, 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00502.x · DOI
- Lotem, 1999, Evolution of cooperation between individuals, Nature, 400, 226, 10.1038/22247 · DOI · Paper page
- MacDonald, 2007, Cross-cultural comparison of learning in human hunting, Hum. Nat., 18, 386, 10.1007/s12110-007-9019-8 · DOI
- Peck, 1986, The evolution of helping behaviour in large, randomly mixing populations, Am Nat., 127, 209, 10.1086/284479 · DOI
- Premack, 2007, Human and animal cognition: continuity and discontinuity, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104, 13861, 10.1073/pnas.0706147104 · DOI
- Raihani, 2008, Experimental evidence for teaching in wild pied babblers, Anim. Behav., 75, 3, 10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.07.024 · DOI
- Rapaport, 2008, Social influences on foraging behavior in young nonhuman primates: learning what, where, and how to eat, Evol. Anthropol., 17, 189, 10.1002/evan.20180 · DOI
- Sachs, 2004, The evolution of cooperation, Q. Rev. Biol., 79, 135, 10.1086/383541 · DOI
- Sherratt, 2001, The importance of phenotypic defectors in stabilizing reciprocal altruism, Behav. Ecol., 12, 313, 10.1093/beheco/12.3.313 · DOI
- Taylor, 1992, Altruism in viscous populations - an inclusive fitness approach, Evol. Ecol., 6, 352, 10.1007/BF02270971 · DOI
- Taylor, 2007, Direct fitness or inclusive fitness: how shall we model kin selection?, J Evolution Biol, 20, 301, 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01196.x · DOI
- Tehrani, 2008, Towards an archaeology of pedagogy: learning, teaching and the generation of material culture traditions, World Archaeology, 40, 316, 10.1080/00438240802261267 · DOI · Paper page
- Thornton, 2006, Teaching in wild meerkats, Science, 313, 227, 10.1126/science.1128727 · DOI
- Thornton, 2008, The evolution of teaching, Anim. Behav., 75, 1823, 10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.12.014 · DOI
- Tomasello, 1994, Chimpanzee cultures, 301
- West, 2010, Sixteen common misconceptions about the evolution of cooperation in humans, Evol. Hum. Behav, 32, 231, 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.08.001 · DOI
- Whiten, 2005, The second inheritance system of chimpanzees and humans, Nature, 437, 52, 10.1038/nature04023 · DOI
- Whiten, 1999, Cultures in chimpanzees, Nature, 399, 682, 10.1038/21415 · DOI
- Whiten, 2003, Cultural panthropology, Evol. Anthropol., 12, 92, 10.1002/evan.10107 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Cultural evolutionary theory: How culture evolves and why it matters
Creanza, N., Kolodny, O., & Feldman, M. W. (2017) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1620732114 · Cited by 482
Kline, M. A. (2015) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x14000090 · Cited by 486
Open Problems in Cooperative AI
Dafoe, A., Hughes, E., Bachrach, Y., Collins, T., McKee, K. R., Leibo, J. Z., Larson, K., & Graepel, T. (2020) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2012.08630 · Cited by 93
Lombao, D., Guardiola, M., & Mosquera, M. (2017) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-017-14322-y · Cited by 86
The origins of language in teaching
Laland, K. N. (2017) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/s13423-016-1077-7 · Cited by 80
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Fogarty, L., Strimling, P., & Laland, K. N.
- Venue
- Evolution
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2011-07-01
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 2760-2770
- ISSN
- 0014-3820
- Cited by
- 141
- References
- 7
- Language
- en
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
