Bilateral (Hong Kong): An experimental study of East-West differences in social learning

我们通常认为抄袭是负面的：在考试中抄袭他人的学生会因为作弊而受到惩罚，而“绵羊”这样的贬义性术语被用来描述那些追随流行趋势的人。然而，从进化的角度来看，模仿他人可以被视为一种适应性的做法。抄袭别人的解决方案意味着我们不必经历漫长而昂贵的反复试验来自己找到解决方案。鉴于社交学习的好处，令人惊讶的是，最近由英国申请者(梅苏迪博士)在英国和美国进行的心理学实验发现，抄袭率低于预期。在解决一项复杂的任务时--使用计算机程序设计一个“虚拟箭头”--人们倾向于不抄袭他人的设计并进行个人反复试验，即使他们如果复制别人已经成功的设计会做得更好。这位香港申请者(张教授)提出了一个潜在的解决方案。他认为，在过去的几个世纪里，西方社会经历了比亚洲社会更多的环境变化，包括气候变化、社会政治变化和农业变化。在进化论方面，快速的环境变化有利于个人学习，因为其他人的行为可能过时和不可靠，而环境稳定有利于社会学习，因为其他人的行为仍然相关和有用。因此，亚洲社会通过更多地参与社会学习来适应历史上的环境稳定，而西方国家通过更多地参与个人学习来适应快速的环境变化。根据这一假设，在对英国和美国参与者进行的实验中，社交学习的比率低于预期，可能是因为这些参与者来自以个人学习为主的西方国家。在这项双边资助中，我们将通过直接比较西方(英国)和亚洲(香港中文)参与者在Mesoudi开发的学习任务上的学习风格来检验张的假设。我们预测，中国参与者将比英国参与者更愿意参与社交学习，这解释了英国参与者在更广泛的文化适应模式方面社交学习的比率低于预期。这将是有史以来第一次使用一项旨在衡量社交学习适应性的任务来对东西方学习风格进行比较。进一步的实验将探索在最初比较中观察到的任何东西方差异的根源和灵活性。我们将(I)在实验室任务中模拟不同程度的环境变化(“环境”的意思是“什么是箭头设计带来的高回报”)，看看参与者是否能够超越他们的文化决定的学习方式，并对当前的环境条件做出适应性反应；(Ii)比较香港城市居民和中国内地农村居民，看看在香港受西方影响的历史是否影响了学习方式；(Iii)测试在英国的中国移民是否将学习方式转变为当地西方社会的学习方式；以及(Iv)看看学习风格是否与文化差异的一个已经确立的维度--个人主义-集体主义相关联。在识别和解释学习风格的东西方差异方面，这个项目可以改善各种现实生活背景下的跨文化互动。例如，在课堂上，鼓励亚洲学生死记硬背老师和课文，而鼓励西方学生通过自主发现学习，这似乎反映了我们正在探索的学习方式。在英国的中国学生经常发现很难适应不同的英国教育风格。通过更好地理解这些差异，我们可以改善移民的融合和跨东西方边界的跨文化交流。

We often think of copying in negative terms: students copying others on tests are penalised for cheating, and derogatory terms like "sheep" are used to describe people who follow popular trends. In evolutionary terms, however, copying others can be seen as an adaptive thing to do. Copying other people's solutions to problems means that we don't have to go through a long and costly process of trial-and-error to find the solution on our own.Given the benefits of social learning, it has been surprising that recent psychology experiments conducted in the UK and US by the UK applicant (Dr Mesoudi) have found lower-than-expected rates of copying. When solving a complex task - designing a "virtual arrowhead" using a computer program - people tend not to copy other people's designs and use individual trial-and-error, even when they would do better if they had copied others who have been successful.A potential solution to this puzzle has been proposed by the Hong Kong applicant (Prof Chang). He has argued that over the last few centuries Western societies have experienced more environmental change, including climatic change, socio-political change and agricultural change, than Asian societies. In evolutionary terms, rapid environmental change favours individual learning, because other people's behaviour may be out-of-date and unreliable, whereas environmental stability favours social learning, because other people's behaviour is still relevant and useful. Consequently, Asian societies have adapted historically to environmental stability by engaging more in social learning, and Western countries have adapted to rapid environmental change by engaging more in individual learning. According to this hypothesis, the lower-than-expected rates of social learning seen in experiments with UK and US participants may be because those participants come from Western countries where individual learning is predominant. In this bilateral grant, we will test Chang's hypothesis by directly comparing the learning style of Western (UK) and Asian (Hong Kong Chinese) participants on the learning task developed by Mesoudi. We predict that Chinese participants will more readily engage in social learning than British participants, explaining the latter's lower-than-expected rates of social learning in terms of broader patterns of cultural adaptation. This will be the first ever East-West comparison of learning style using a task designed to measure the adaptiveness of social learning.Further experiments will probe the origin and flexibility of any East-West differences observed in the initial comparison. We will (i) simulate different levels of environmental change in the lab task (where "environment" means "what arrowhead design gives a high payoff") to see whether participants can override their culturally-determined learning style and respond adaptively to immediate environmental conditions; (ii) compare urban Hong Kong residents with rural mainland Chinese residents, to see if a history of Western influence in Hong Kong has influenced learning style; (iii) test Chinese immigrants in the UK to see if they shift learning style to that of the local Western society; and (iv) see if learning style correlates with an already established dimension of cultural variation, individualism-collectivism.In identifying and explaining East-West differences in learning styles, this project can improve cross-cultural interactions in various real-life contexts. In the classroom, for example, Asian students are encouraged to learn by rote from teachers and texts, while Western students are encouraged to learn through independent discovery, which seems to reflect the learning styles we are exploring. Chinese students in the UK often find it difficult to adjust to the different UK style of education. By better understanding such differences, we can improve the integration of immigrants and cross-cultural communication across East-West boundaries.