Conformist transmission means overcopying the majority beyond its base rate
Evidence
Suppose you are in a foreign city, hungry, and trying to pick one of ten possible restaurants on a busy street. You can’t read the menus because you don’t know the local language, but you can tell that the prices and atmospheres of each establishment are identical. One place has 40 diners, six have 10 diners, and three are empty, except for the waitstaff. If you would pick the restaurant with 40 people (out of the 100 you’ve observed) more than 40% of the time then you are using conformist transmission—you are strongly inclined to copy the most common trait—the majority or the plurality. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 180
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines conformist transmission precisely: this is the key term the reader is hunting for across the book.
- XREF: connects to: Conformist transmission means copying the commonest behavior more than its frequency warrants; Conformist transmission skews trait frequency toward the population majority beyond unbiased copying. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 124; Conformist transmission amplifies majority traits toward fixation across generations. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 24 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Conformist transmission means copying the commonest behavior more than its frequency warrants
#expands(0.98) - Conformist transmission skews trait frequency toward the population majority beyond unbiased copying.
#expands(0.96) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 124 - Conformist transmission increases behavioral adoption odds above population frequency.
#expands(0.92) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 34 - Conformist transmission amplifies majority traits toward fixation across generations.
#expands(0.85) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 24 - Conformist transmission biases learners toward adopting a population’s most frequent cultural traits.
#qualifies(0.75) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 23