Natural selection favors conformist transmission under a wide range of conditions, including fluctuating environments.

Evidence

Our model indicates that conformist transmission is favored by selection under a wide range of conditions. Conformist transmission evolves in fluctuating environments; it evolves when the accuracy of environmental information is poor and when it is fairly accurate. 2. Assuming that our model captures the conditions that shaped the evolution of social learning in humans, we have shown that natural selection favors increasing the reliance on social learning. And, there is no case in which a strong reliance on social learning evolves but conformist transmission does not. Thus, the fact that humans can imitate implies that conformism also is likely to be an important component of human social learning. 3. In our model, the presence of a conformist effect increases the evolutionary equilibrium amount of social learning. Social learning becomes more prevalent when conformist genotypes are possible. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 121

Categorization

• XREF: This is the foundational paper’s own bottom line, the source claim behind Henrich’s later popular presentations of conformist transmission, and feeds the coercion-vulnerability research thread. — connects to: Conformist transmission is favored across a broader range of conditions than mere social learning. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 3; Selection favors conformist transmission in both spatially and temporally varying environments — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 14; Conformist transmission stays strong even when environmental cues are highly accurate or uninformative. — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 85 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Establishes what ‘conformist transmission evolves/favored’ means in this model: selection raises the equilibrium reliability on social learning whenever imitation is possible.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that there is ‘no case’ where strong reliance on social learning evolves without conformist transmission, plus conformism raising the equilibrium level of social learning itself, is a dense, counterintuitive-seeming recursion worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Evolutionary selection robustly favors copying the majority even when environments shift often. #corroborates (0.95) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 75
• Conformist transmission evolves robustly across far more conditions than heavy social learning does #expands (0.82) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 65
• Conformist transmission is favored only when some migration exists. #qualifies (0.78) — Joe Henrich and Robert Boyd, The Evolution of Conformist…, 86