Cultural learning machinery must activate early in development

Evidence

Any learners who miss the boat on mentalizing and cultural learning, or get started too late, will be at a serious disadvantage because they won’t have acquired all the norms, skills, and know-how necessary to compete with other, better, cultural learners. This logic suggests that the mental machinery we need for cultural learning ought to fire up relatively early in our development. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 187

If humans are a cultural species, then one of our most crucial adaptations is our ability to keenly observe and learn from other people. Central to our cultural learning is our ability to make inferences about the goals, preferences, motivations, intentions, beliefs, and strategies in the minds of others. These cognitive abilities relate to what is variously termed mentalizing , or theory of mind . Any learners who miss the boat on mentalizing and cultural learning, or get started too late, will be at a serious disadvantage because they won’t have acquired all the norms, skills, and know-how necessary to compete with other, better, cultural learners. This logic suggests that the mental machinery we need for cultural learning ought to fire up relatively early in our development. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 188

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines mentalizing/theory of mind as the inference machinery under cultural learning.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 187; Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 188
• XREF: connects to: Social learning is toddlers’ only cognitive edge over great apes. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 78; Cultural learning skills drove rapid human adaptation across all habitats — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 125; Mind reading competence is learned through cultural scaffolding from birth — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 431 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Mind reading competence is learned through cultural scaffolding from birth #corroborates (0.85) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 431
• Bigger-brained species evolve longer childhoods to permit learning #corroborates (0.85) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 957
• Early developmental steps entrench long-evolved components in later capacities #corroborates (0.80)
• Cultural learning skills drove rapid human adaptation across all habitats #expands (0.78) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 125