Social Learning, Trial-and-Error, and Creativity

Abstract

Homo sapiens is a species whose behaviors are determined heavily by learning. Typically, research on learning has assumed implicitly a dichotomy between individual learning and social learning, and examined under what conditions each type of learning ability can be adaptive. These previous studies have two problems, however. First, there is little empirical data on the relationship between individual learning and social learning among humans. Second, they assume that social learning is usually represented by the single ability of imitation, while individual learning is represented by either trial-and-error or creativity, although these two abilities are quite different from each other. The current study investigated the relationships between these three major human learning abilities for the first time. The results of the two experiments showed that there is a positive relationship between creativity and imitation, and no relationship between trial-and-error and imitation. The relationship between creativity and trial-and-error remains ambiguous. These results suggest that there is no trade-off between individual learning and social learning. Thus, it partly supports a new theoretical argument that a social learner-explorer, who combines accurate social learning with exploratory individual learning, is most adaptive under certain fluctuating environments.