Advances in our conception of social learning as a
biologically significant phenomenon require consideration
of more factors than the psychological
mechanisms of learning (i.e. the distinctions
between facilitation, enhancement, imitation,
etc.). The field is in some danger of drowning in
semantic arguments over these issues (e.g. Galef
1988; Whiten & Ham 1992). The model presented
here looks at social learning from the perspective
of information acquired, rather than the psychological
process responsible for its acquisition.
Therefore, it is independent of process-driven
arguments, with their thicket of semantic distinctions.
It generates a spectrum of testable hypotheses
concerning the relation between social
dynamics and social learning. It might contribute
to resolving the apparent paradox that some of
the most striking examples of social learning are
found in species that are phylogenetically distant
from humans (e.g. birds and rats) rather than in
primates. We agree with Laland et al. (1993) and
Box (1994) that the assumption of more extensive
or more sophisticated social learning in mammals
in general, and non-human primates in particular,
because of their phylogenetic proximity to ourselves,
is unwarranted. Social learning is more
likely to vary in biologically meaningful ways
as a function of social characteristics and social
setting, and the kinds of information that might
be transmitted socially, than as a function of
phylogeny per se. The contribution of sociality to
social learning, and to its variation with