Learners suppress causal reasoning when cultural transmission supplies ready-made models
Evidence
As a product of this long-running duet between cumulative cultural evolution and genes, our brains have genetically adapted to a world in which information crucial to our survival was embedded implicitly in a vast body of knowledge that we inherit culturally from previous generations. This information comes buried in daily cooking routines (manioc), taboos, divination rituals, local tastes (chili peppers), mental models, and tool-manufacturing scripts (arrow shafts). These practices and beliefs are often (implicitly) MUCH smarter than we are, as neither individuals nor groups could figure them out in one lifetime. … For these evolutionary reasons, learners first decide if they will “turn on” their causal-model builders at all, and if so, they have to carefully assess how much mental effort to put into them. And if cultural transmission supplies a prebuilt mental model for how things work, learners readily acquire and adhere to those. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 375
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Children activate causal reasoning mainly when observing people use cultural artifacts — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 378; Learners adopt causally opaque cultural practices through implicit trust in accumulated wisdom — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 376; Conformist transmission biases learners toward adopting a population’s most frequent cultural traits. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 23
Broader Connections
- Learners adopt causally opaque cultural practices through implicit trust in accumulated wisdom
#corroborates(0.86) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 376 - Children activate causal reasoning mainly when observing people use cultural artifacts
#qualifies(0.78) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 378 - Conformist transmission biases learners toward adopting a population’s most frequent cultural traits.
#expands(0.75) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 23