Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures
Children are skilful at acquiring tool-using skills by faithfully copying relevant and irrelevant actions performed by others, but poor at innovating tools to solve problems. Five- to twelve-year-old urban French and rural Serbian children (N = 208) were exposed to a Hook task; a jar containing a re...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2017-01-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170367 |
| _version_ | 1818246640105947136 |
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| author | Aurélien Frick Fabrice Clément Thibaud Gruber |
| author_facet | Aurélien Frick Fabrice Clément Thibaud Gruber |
| author_sort | Aurélien Frick |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Children are skilful at acquiring tool-using skills by faithfully copying relevant and irrelevant actions performed by others, but poor at innovating tools to solve problems. Five- to twelve-year-old urban French and rural Serbian children (N = 208) were exposed to a Hook task; a jar containing a reward in a bucket and a pipe cleaner as potential recovering tool material. In both countries, few children under the age of 10 made a hook from the pipe cleaner to retrieve the reward on their own. However, from five onward, the majority of unsuccessful children succeeded after seeing an adult model manufacturing a hook without completing the task. Additionally, a third of the children who observed a similar demonstration including an irrelevant action performed with a second object, a string, replicated this meaningless action. Children's difficulty with innovation and early capacity for overimitation thus do not depend on socio-economic background. Strikingly, we document a sex difference in overimitation across cultures, with boys engaging more in overimitation than girls, a finding that may result from differences regarding explorative tool-related behaviour. This male-biased sex effect sheds new light on our understanding of overimitation, and more generally, on how human tool culture evolved. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T14:52:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-98547f35e9c440c69bae4f096bd085d9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T14:52:01Z |
| publishDate | 2017-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-98547f35e9c440c69bae4f096bd085d92022-12-22T00:20:59ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032017-01-0141210.1098/rsos.170367170367Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across culturesAurélien FrickFabrice ClémentThibaud GruberChildren are skilful at acquiring tool-using skills by faithfully copying relevant and irrelevant actions performed by others, but poor at innovating tools to solve problems. Five- to twelve-year-old urban French and rural Serbian children (N = 208) were exposed to a Hook task; a jar containing a reward in a bucket and a pipe cleaner as potential recovering tool material. In both countries, few children under the age of 10 made a hook from the pipe cleaner to retrieve the reward on their own. However, from five onward, the majority of unsuccessful children succeeded after seeing an adult model manufacturing a hook without completing the task. Additionally, a third of the children who observed a similar demonstration including an irrelevant action performed with a second object, a string, replicated this meaningless action. Children's difficulty with innovation and early capacity for overimitation thus do not depend on socio-economic background. Strikingly, we document a sex difference in overimitation across cultures, with boys engaging more in overimitation than girls, a finding that may result from differences regarding explorative tool-related behaviour. This male-biased sex effect sheds new light on our understanding of overimitation, and more generally, on how human tool culture evolved.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170367overimitationinnovationtool-usecross-culturalsex differencescumulative culture |
| spellingShingle | Aurélien Frick Fabrice Clément Thibaud Gruber Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures Royal Society Open Science overimitation innovation tool-use cross-cultural sex differences cumulative culture |
| title | Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures |
| title_full | Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures |
| title_fullStr | Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures |
| title_full_unstemmed | Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures |
| title_short | Evidence for a sex effect during overimitation: boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures |
| title_sort | evidence for a sex effect during overimitation boys copy irrelevant modelled actions more than girls across cultures |
| topic | overimitation innovation tool-use cross-cultural sex differences cumulative culture |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.170367 |
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