2-133 - Social Learning across Cultures: Evidence from Small-Scale Societies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Understanding the processes and mechanisms of social learning is fundamental to developing our knowledge of human development. A theoretical debate surrounding the mechanisms of social learning exists within and across disciplines, with psychologists suggesting that pedagogy or teaching is an adapted human trait (Csibra & Gergely, 2009, 2011), whereas ethnographic reports from anthropologists indicates that teaching is rare to non-existent in many non-Western societies (Lancy, 2010). This symposium addresses the question with quantitative ethnography and structured observations examining the social learning environment in small-scale, non-western societies. The papers presented will explore this debate by examining the early social environment and presenting evidence for various kinds of pedagogy and associated behaviors as well as discuss the variation across and within societies. The first paper documents various forms of teaching behavior ranging from direct to subtle forms of teaching in Fiji and refutes the claim that teaching is non-existent outside of Western environments. The second paper examines pedagogical behaviours in the form of parental modification during parent-infant interactions in Vanuatu and suggests that parents modify their behaviour to accommodate infants. The third paper tests a set of hypotheses around universal and culture-specific patterns of teaching with time allocation data from the Aka hunter-gatherers and Ngandu farmers of the Congo Basin. Taken together these papers provide new evidence to help elucidate questions surrounding the topic of early learning and the role of pedagogy in development.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Tanya Broesch, Simon Fraser University

Discussant

• Cristine H. Legare, University of Texas at Austin

Individual Presentations

• Pedagogy in Early Childhood in a Non-Western Population: Quantitative Ethnography from Fiji - Presenting Author: Michelle Ann Kline, Arizona State Univ

• Pedagogical Signals during Parent-Infant Interactions in Vanuatu - Presenting Author: Tanya Broesch, Simon Fraser University

• Teaching in Daily Life from across Childhood (4 to 16 years) among Central African Foragers and Farmers - Presenting Author: Adam Howell Boyette, Duke University; Barry Hewlett, Washington State University Vancouver