scholarly journals How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Brady ◽  
Killian Lorcan McLoughlin ◽  
Tuan Nguyen Doan ◽  
Molly Crockett
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Social Learning Processes

Moral outrage shapes fundamental aspects of human social life and is now widespread in online social networks. Here, we show how social learning processes amplify online moral outrage expressions over time. In two pre-registered observational studies of Twitter (7,331 users and 12.7 million total tweets) and two pre-registered behavioral experiments (N = 240), we find that positive social feedback for outrage expressions increases the likelihood of future outrage expressions, consistent with principles of reinforcement learning. We also find that outrage expressions are sensitive to expressive norms in users’ social networks, over and above users’ own preferences, suggesting that norm learning processes guide online outrage expressions. Moreover, expressive norms moderate social reinforcement of outrage: in ideologically extreme networks, where outrage expression is more common, users are less sensitive to social feedback when deciding whether to express outrage. Our findings highlight how platform design interacts with human learning mechanisms to impact moral discourse in digital public spaces.

scholarly journals How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (33) ◽  
pp. eabe5641
Author(s):  
William J. Brady ◽  
Killian McLoughlin ◽  
Tuan N. Doan ◽  
Molly J. Crockett
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Social Feedback ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Social Learning Processes

Moral outrage shapes fundamental aspects of social life and is now widespread in online social networks. Here, we show how social learning processes amplify online moral outrage expressions over time. In two preregistered observational studies on Twitter (7331 users and 12.7 million total tweets) and two preregistered behavioral experiments (N = 240), we find that positive social feedback for outrage expressions increases the likelihood of future outrage expressions, consistent with principles of reinforcement learning. In addition, users conform their outrage expressions to the expressive norms of their social networks, suggesting norm learning also guides online outrage expressions. Norm learning overshadows reinforcement learning when normative information is readily observable: in ideologically extreme networks, where outrage expression is more common, users are less sensitive to social feedback when deciding whether to express outrage. Our findings highlight how platform design interacts with human learning mechanisms to affect moral discourse in digital public spaces.

A cognitive approach to cumulative technological culture is useful and necessary but only if it also applies to other species

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaud Gruber
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Social Learning Processes

Abstract The debate on cumulative technological culture (CTC) is dominated by social-learning discussions, at the expense of other cognitive processes, leading to flawed circular arguments. I welcome the authors' approach to decouple CTC from social-learning processes without minimizing their impact. Yet, this model will only be informative to understand the evolution of CTC if tested in other cultural species.

scholarly journals The Psychological Reach of Culture in Animals’ Lives

2021 ◽  
pp. 096372142199311
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Social Learning Processes ◽  
Learning From Others ◽  
Behavioral Domains

Culture—the totality of traditions acquired in a community by social learning from other individuals—has increasingly been found to be pervasive not only in humans’ but in many other animals’ lives. Compared with learning on one’s own initiative, learning from others can be very much safer and more efficient, as the wisdom already accumulated by other individuals is assimilated. This article offers an overview of often surprising recent discoveries charting the reach of culture across an ever-expanding diversity of species, as well as an extensive variety of behavioral domains, and throughout an animal’s life. The psychological reach of culture is reflected in the knowledge and skills an animal thus acquires, via an array of different social learning processes. Social learning is often further guided by a suite of adaptive psychological biases, such as conformity and learning from optimal models. In humans, cumulative cultural change over generations has generated the complex cultural phenomena observed today. Animal cultures have been thought to lack this cumulative power, but recent findings suggest that elementary versions of cumulative culture may be important in animals’ lives.

scholarly journals Experimental studies illuminate the cultural transmission of percussive technologies in Homo and Pan

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1682) ◽  
pp. 20140359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Cognitive Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
Special Power ◽  
Social Learning Processes

The complexity of Stone Age tool-making is assumed to have relied upon cultural transmission, but direct evidence is lacking. This paper reviews evidence bearing on this question provided through five related empirical perspectives. Controlled experimental studies offer special power in identifying and dissecting social learning into its diverse component forms, such as imitation and emulation. The first approach focuses on experimental studies that have discriminated social learning processes in nut-cracking by chimpanzees. Second come experiments that have identified and dissected the processes of cultural transmission involved in a variety of other force-based forms of chimpanzee tool use. A third perspective is provided by field studies that have revealed a range of forms of forceful, targeted tool use by chimpanzees, that set percussion in its broader cognitive context. Fourth are experimental studies of the development of flint knapping to make functional sharp flakes by bonobos, implicating and defining the social learning and innovation involved. Finally, new and substantial experiments compare what different social learning processes, from observational learning to teaching, afford good quality human flake and biface manufacture. Together these complementary approaches begin to delineate the social learning processes necessary to percussive technologies within the Pan – Homo clade.

scholarly journals Quantum Probabilistic Models Using Feynman Diagram Rules for Better Understanding the Information Diffusion Dynamics in Online Social Networks

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 13730-13731
Author(s):  
Ece C. Mutlu
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Bayesian Networks ◽  
Online Social Networks ◽  
Information Diffusion ◽  
Probabilistic Models ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Diffusion Dynamics

This doctoral consortium presents an overview of my anticipated PhD dissertation which focuses on employing quantum Bayesian networks for social learning. The project, mainly, aims to expand the use of current quantum probabilistic models in human decision-making from two agents to multi-agent systems. First, I cultivate the classical Bayesian networks which are used to understand information diffusion through human interaction on online social networks (OSNs) by taking into account the relevance of multitude of social, psychological, behavioral and cognitive factors influencing the process of information transmission. Since quantum like models require quantum probability amplitudes, the complexity will be exponentially increased with increasing uncertainty in the complex system. Therefore, the research will be followed by a study on optimization of heuristics. Here, I suggest to use an belief entropy based heuristic approach. This research is an interdisciplinary research which is related with the branches of complex systems, quantum physics, network science, information theory, cognitive science and mathematics. Therefore, findings can contribute significantly to the areas related mainly with social learning behavior of people, and also to the aforementioned branches of complex systems. In addition, understanding the interactions in complex systems might be more viable via the findings of this research since probabilistic approaches are not only used for predictive purposes but also for explanatory aims.

scholarly journals Social Learning Processes in Swiss Soil Protection—The ‘From Farmer - To Farmer’ Project

Human Ecology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flurina Schneider ◽  
Patricia Fry ◽  
Thomas Ledermann ◽  
Stephan Rist
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Soil Protection ◽  
Social Learning Processes

scholarly journals The scope and limits of overimitation in the transmission of artefact culture

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1567) ◽  
pp. 1158-1167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek E. Lyons ◽  
Diana H. Damrosch ◽  
Jennifer K. Lin ◽  
Deanna M. Macris ◽  
Frank C. Keil
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Learning Function ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Learning Processes ◽  
Unfamiliar Object

Children are generally masterful imitators, both rational and flexible in their reproduction of others' actions. After observing an adult operating an unfamiliar object, however, young children will frequently overimitate , reproducing not only the actions that were causally necessary but also those that were clearly superfluous. Why does overimitation occur? We argue that when children observe an adult intentionally acting on a novel object, they may automatically encode all of the adult's actions as causally meaningful. This process of automatic causal encoding (ACE) would generally guide children to accurate beliefs about even highly opaque objects. In situations where some of an adult's intentional actions were unnecessary, however, it would also lead to persistent overimitation. Here, we undertake a thorough examination of the ACE hypothesis, reviewing prior evidence and offering three new experiments to further test the theory. We show that children will persist in overimitating even when doing so is costly (underscoring the involuntary nature of the effect), but also that the effect is constrained by intentionality in a manner consistent with its posited learning function. Overimitation may illuminate not only the structure of children's causal understanding, but also the social learning processes that support our species' artefact-centric culture.

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