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

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In evolutionary terms, rapid environmental change favours individual learning, because other people's behaviour may be out-of-date and unreliable, whereas environmental stability favours social learning, because other people's behaviour is still relevant and useful.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.

This project relates directly to the "Social Diversity and Population Dynamics" and "Understanding Individual Behaviour" ESRC priority areas. Major beneficiaries of this research include Chinese immigrants (especially students) to the UK who may face barriers to integration related to the differences in learning style explored in this project, and UK companies who have business dealings with China and may similarly face barriers to successful communication.

Social and economic interaction with China is becoming increasingly important for the UK through migration, education and trade. Understanding how these two cultures differ in their learning style can improve this interaction. For example, Chinese students studying in the UK often have difficulty adjusting to the independent learning style encouraged at all levels of the UK educational system, and particularly university level. In business, too, UK employers may expect greater independent learning and autonomy from their employees than do Chinese employers, potentially creating problems in UK-China business interactions. Culturally-determined learning style may also influence consumer behaviour, with social-learning-based adverts (e.g. "buy this product because others are") more effective in Asia and individual-learning-based adverts (e.g. "buy this product to be different to others") more effective in the West.

This project will determine the extent of these various differences, and through the unique use of rural and immigrant groups determine how malleable these differences are, both important factors when designing interventions to improve cross-cultural interaction. Our project therefore directly relates to the themes of immigration and social integration at the core of the "Social Diversity and Population Dynamics" priority area. An understanding of how culturally-influenced learning style influences individual behaviour (i.e. to solve a task via social or individual learning) also contributes to the "Understanding Individual Behaviour" priority area.

To aid dissemination of our findings to the public and to charities that deal with immigration and inter-cultural relations we will produce a project website that will describe the aims, methods and findings of the study in an accessible, easy-to-understand manner, and produce press releases to disseminate findings via local and national mass media.