Conformist transmission increases behavioral adoption odds above population frequency.

Evidence

The model is divided into four stages: cultural transmission (which includes conformist transmission), individual learning, migration, and natural selection. First, individuals acquire their initial behavior by imitating members of the previous generation. Genetic variation among individuals affects both the extent to which individuals rely on social learning and the degree of conformism in that social learning. The probability that an individual without any propensity for conformism (which we term unbiased transmission) acquires a behavior is the same as the frequency of that behavior in the previous generation. For example, if 73% of the previous generation exhibits behavior 1, an individual using unbiased transmission has a 73% chance of acquiring behavior 1. Those with a conformist psychology will have a probability higher than 0.73 (in this example) of acquiring behavior 1—their particular probabilities depend on the strength of the conformist effect in their particular genotype. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 34

Categorization

• DEFINE: Operationalizes conformist transmission precisely: adoption probability exceeds the trait’s population frequency, with strength varying by genotype.
• ADDENDUM: This is the technical definition that underpins the coercion-vulnerability argument in Henrich’s later work — establishes what conformist bias means mathematically before selection conditions are derived.
• XREF: connects to: Conformist transmission means overcopying the majority beyond its base rate — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 180; Conformist transmission amplifies majority traits toward fixation across generations. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 24; Conformist transmission biases learners toward adopting a population’s most frequent cultural traits. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 23 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Conformist transmission skews trait frequency toward the population majority beyond unbiased copying. #corroborates (0.98) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 124
• Conformist transmission means copying the commonest behavior more than its frequency warrants #expands (0.95)