Beyond the Nature-Culture opposition: An ecological approach to social learning in humans and other animals

Objective

The modern concept of culture—understood in opposition to nature—has been used to distinguish humans from other animals and anthropology from biology/psychology. Culture has been defined in terms of symbols, shared meanings, language, behavioural patterns, and social learning (SL). However, abundant evidence now shows that SL occurs in many nonhuman animals, including primates, cetaceans, birds, fish, and insects. In these cases, researchers now use the term ‘culture’ in a reduced sense, referring only to transmitted patterns of behaviour, without reference to symbols, language, or meanings. While SL studies have deepened our understanding of human cognitive evolution, this uncritical redefinition led to an enduring controversy with anthropologists. At the same time, anthropologists have increasingly critiqued the modern culture paradigm, advocating for relational and embodied approaches to overcome oppositions such as nature/culture, individual/society, and body/mind, but these critiques are largely ignored by SL researchers. The dominant ‘transmission of information’ model of SL implies an active transmitter and a passive receiver of signals. This model fails to capture the contingent and moment-to-moment coordination which often occur between individuals. This project will foster interdisciplinary dialogue and address three key shortcomings of the dominant approach to SL, namely its commitment to developmental dualism, computationalism, and methodological individualism. WP1 will conduct a scoping review to clarify the epistemic basis, insights, and limitations of the dominant model. WP2 will develop an ecological approach to SL grounded in ecological psychology, developmental systems theory, and contemporary anthropology. WP3 will experimentally compare the dominant and ecological approaches in terms of the research questions, analyses, and interpretations they motivate. This has implications for biology, psychology, anthropology, education, and conservation.