Evolutionary selection robustly favors copying the majority even when environments shift often.

Evidence

Interestingly, even when most individuals learn on their own and only a few imitate (e.g., L 5 0.2), conformist transmission remains adaptive and evolves to 80% of its maximum value. When one imitates, even in an environment that shifts 40% of the time, preferentially copying the most frequent behavior remains advantageous. Consequently, it is the evolution of social learning, and not the evolution of the conformist effect, that demands more stable environments. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 75

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the MOC thread: conformist copying is the cheap, robust transmission channel that individual-difference theories cannot explain. — connects to: Conformist transmission is favored only when some migration exists. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 86; Selection favors conformist transmission in both spatially and temporally varying environments — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 14; Conformist bias evolution requires less environmental stability than social learning evolution itself. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 75 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: If conformism survives 40% environmental switching, what ambient stability does real-world ideological reproduction actually require?