Social Exploration

This chapter analyzes social exploration, or the tendency of living organisms to learn from the experiences of others. Social exploration has two major advantages over direct exploration. First, it is often less costly to implement. Second, the rewards in social exploration typically occur faster than in direct exploration. Societies extend resources to accumulate and disseminate the accumulated knowledge through exploration. The chapter discusses some vehicles of the transmission of this knowledge, such as cultural norms, narratives, and records. Social exploration, however, could be imprecise. People also exhibit different characteristics and what is optimal or desirable for some, might not be optimal or desirable for others. For all these reasons, individuals need to assess the relative advantages and disadvantages of social exploration versus direct exploration. The chapter argues that the value of social exploration tends to decrease with respect to its prevalence in a group. This is because high levels of social exploration make direct exploration less popular. When the level of direct exploration drops, however, so does the quality of social information. In response, individuals and societies are expected to adopt contrarian behaviors discouraging the use of social information. The chapter reviews some contrarian behaviors such as one’s tendency for rebellion, preference for distinctiveness, and countercultural phenomena.