The cultural evolution of teaching
Teaching is an important process of cultural transmission. Some have argued that human teaching is a cognitive instinct – a form of ‘natural cognition’ centred on mindreading, shaped by genetic evolution for the education of juveniles, and with a normative developmental trajectory driven by the unfo...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Evolutionary Human Sciences |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513843X23000142/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1797662087561871360 |
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| author | Eva Brandl Ruth Mace Cecilia Heyes |
| author_facet | Eva Brandl Ruth Mace Cecilia Heyes |
| author_sort | Eva Brandl |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Teaching is an important process of cultural transmission. Some have argued that human teaching is a cognitive instinct – a form of ‘natural cognition’ centred on mindreading, shaped by genetic evolution for the education of juveniles, and with a normative developmental trajectory driven by the unfolding of a genetically inherited predisposition to teach. Here, we argue instead that human teaching is a culturally evolved trait that exhibits characteristics of a cognitive gadget. Children learn to teach by participating in teaching interactions with socialising agents, which shape their own teaching practices. This process hijacks psychological mechanisms involved in prosociality and a range of domain-general cognitive abilities, such as reinforcement learning and executive function, but not a suite of cognitive adaptations specifically for teaching. Four lines of evidence converge on this hypothesis. The first, based on psychological experiments in industrialised societies, indicates that domain-general cognitive processes are important for teaching. The second and third lines, based on naturalistic and experimental research in small-scale societies, indicate marked cross-cultural variation in mature teaching practice and in the ontogeny of teaching among children. The fourth line indicates that teaching has been subject to cumulative cultural evolution, i.e. the gradual accumulation of functional changes across generations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T18:55:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e1a3513d98fd425cabaebfc1591f414f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2513-843X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T18:55:02Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Evolutionary Human Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-e1a3513d98fd425cabaebfc1591f414f2023-10-11T06:14:32ZengCambridge University PressEvolutionary Human Sciences2513-843X2023-01-01510.1017/ehs.2023.14The cultural evolution of teachingEva Brandl0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0558-4944Ruth Mace1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6137-7739Cecilia Heyes2Lise Meitner Research Group BirthRites, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, GermanyDepartment of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UKAll Souls College and Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4AL, UKTeaching is an important process of cultural transmission. Some have argued that human teaching is a cognitive instinct – a form of ‘natural cognition’ centred on mindreading, shaped by genetic evolution for the education of juveniles, and with a normative developmental trajectory driven by the unfolding of a genetically inherited predisposition to teach. Here, we argue instead that human teaching is a culturally evolved trait that exhibits characteristics of a cognitive gadget. Children learn to teach by participating in teaching interactions with socialising agents, which shape their own teaching practices. This process hijacks psychological mechanisms involved in prosociality and a range of domain-general cognitive abilities, such as reinforcement learning and executive function, but not a suite of cognitive adaptations specifically for teaching. Four lines of evidence converge on this hypothesis. The first, based on psychological experiments in industrialised societies, indicates that domain-general cognitive processes are important for teaching. The second and third lines, based on naturalistic and experimental research in small-scale societies, indicate marked cross-cultural variation in mature teaching practice and in the ontogeny of teaching among children. The fourth line indicates that teaching has been subject to cumulative cultural evolution, i.e. the gradual accumulation of functional changes across generations.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513843X23000142/type/journal_articleCultural evolutionsocial learningteachingcognitive gadgets |
| spellingShingle | Eva Brandl Ruth Mace Cecilia Heyes The cultural evolution of teaching Evolutionary Human Sciences Cultural evolution social learning teaching cognitive gadgets |
| title | The cultural evolution of teaching |
| title_full | The cultural evolution of teaching |
| title_fullStr | The cultural evolution of teaching |
| title_full_unstemmed | The cultural evolution of teaching |
| title_short | The cultural evolution of teaching |
| title_sort | cultural evolution of teaching |
| topic | Cultural evolution social learning teaching cognitive gadgets |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2513843X23000142/type/journal_article |
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