Social and individual learning of helping in humans and other species

Laurent Lehmann*, Kevin R. Foster, Elhanan Borenstein, Marcus W. Feldman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

Helping behaviors can be innate, learned by copying others (cultural transmission) or individually learned de novo. These three possibilities are often entangled in debates on the evolution of helping in humans. Here we discuss their similarities and differences, and argue that evolutionary biologists underestimate the role of individual learning in the expression of helping behaviors in humans.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)664-671
Number of pages8
JournalTrends in Ecology and Evolution
Volume23
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2008
Externally publishedYes

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