Résultat de la recherche
Teaching, sharing experience, and innovation in cultural transmission
AbstractTeaching is widely understood to have an important role in cultural transmission. But cultural transmission experiments typically do not document or analyse what happens during teaching. Here, we examine the content of teaching during skill transmission under two conditions: in the presence of the artefact (no-displacement condition) and in the absence of the artefact (displacement condition). Participants built baskets from various materials to carry as much rice as possible before teaching the next participant in line. The efficacy of baskets increased over generations in both conditions, and higher performing baskets were more frequently copied; however, the weight of rice transported did not differ between conditions. Displacement affected the choice of strategy by increasing innovation. Teachers shared personal experience more to discuss non-routine events (those departing from expectations) than they did other types of teaching, especially in the presence of the artefact. Exposure to non-routine experience sharing during teaching increased subsequent innovation, supporting the idea that sharing experience through activities such as storytelling serves a sensemaking function in teaching. This study thus provides experimental evidence that sharing experience is a useful teaching method in the context of manual skill transmission.
Is the power of weak ties universal? A cross-cultural comparison of social interaction in Argentina and Canada
Although we interact with a wide range of people on a daily basis, the social psychological literature has primarily focused on interactions with close friends and family (i.e. strong ties). Recent research carried out on Canadian students suggests emotional benefits to interacting with acquaintances (i.e. weak social ties). The present study investigates whether this 'weak tie effect' holds in non-Western cultures, using a Latin American sample to broaden our understanding of collectivism. Participants reported daily how many strong and weak ties they greeted in person, as well as a daily subjective wellbeing questionnaire. Preliminary analyses suggest weak tie interaction is related to a sense of community, and indicate distinct patterns of social interaction among Latinos.
Coordination processes in conversation : the cases of gaze in greetings and storytelling in teaching
Anglais Throughout human evolution, face-to-face conversational interaction has been the primary means of communication in everyday life. It is the fundamental setting for human interaction and so ideal to gain insights into the nature of communication (Schegloff, 2007). Humans communicate primarily to solve problems of cooperation, and these cooperation problems are a source of evolutionary pressure that has shaped the nature of social interaction. This thesis focuses on the cases of two recurrent coordination problems in communication, and the behavioural adaptations specialised to resolve them. One recurrent interactional problem we face is how to begin face-to-face social interactions (Pillet-Shore, 2018). Contrary to what we might first think, social interactions do not begin by people simply starting to speak, instead they must engage with each other methodically through a combination of verbal and non-verbal cues in order to get into the interaction (Mondada et al., 2020). Gaze is specialised during greeting behaviour to solve this problem by initiating social interaction. Another recurrent interactional problem faced by all human cultures is passing on information and skills to prevent them from dying out from one generation to the next. This is commonly achieved through the social activity of teaching (Kline, 2015), particularly through the specialised teaching method of storytelling (Scalise Sugiyama, 2017). The cases of gaze in greetings and storytelling in teaching illustrate how humans have adapted to facilitate social interaction, providing broad insight into coordination processes in communication. Français Tout au long de l'évolution humaine, l'interaction conversationnelle en face à face a été le principal moyen de communication dans la vie quotidienne. Il s'agit du cadre fondamental de l'interaction humaine, ce qui est idéal pour comprendre la nature de la communication (Schegloff, 2007). Les humains communiquent principalement pour résoudre des problèmes de coopération, et ces problèmes de coopération sont une source de pression évolutive qui a façonné la nature de l'interaction sociale. Cette thèse se concentre sur les cas de deux problèmes récurrents de coordination dans la communication, et les adaptations comportementales spécialisées pour les résoudre. L'un des problèmes interactionnels récurrents auxquels nous sommes confrontés est de savoir comment commencer les interactions sociales en face à face (Pillet-Shore, 2018). Contrairement à ce que l'on pourrait penser, les interactions sociales ne commencent pas simplement par la parole, mais par une combinaison d'indices verbaux et non verbaux afin d'entrer dans l'interaction (Mondada et al., 2020). Le regard est spécialisé pendant le comportement de salutation pour résoudre ce problème en initiant l'interaction sociale. Un autre problème interactionnel récurrent auquel sont confrontées toutes les cultures humaines est la transmission d'informations et de compétences pour éviter qu'elles ne disparaissent d'une génération à l'autre. Ceci est communément réalisé par l'activité sociale de l'enseignement (Kline, 2015), en particulier par la méthode d'enseignement spécialisée de la narration (Scalise Sugiyama, 2017). Les cas du regard dans les salutations et de la narration dans l'enseignement illustrent la façon dont les humains se sont adaptés pour faciliter l'interaction sociale, fournissant un large aperçu des processus de coordination dans la communication.
Storytelling as Adaptive Collective Sensemaking.
Storytelling represents a key element in the creation and propagation of culture. Three main accounts of the adaptive function of storytelling include (a) manipulating the behavior of the audience to enhance the fitness of the narrator, (b) transmitting survival-relevant information while avoiding the costs involved in the first-hand acquisition of that information, and (c) maintaining social bonds or group-level cooperation. We assess the substantial evidence collected in experimental and ethnographic studies for each account. These accounts do not always appeal to the specific features of storytelling above and beyond language use in general. We propose that the specific adaptive value of storytelling lies in making sense of non-routine, uncertain, or novel situations, thereby enabling the collaborative development of previously acquired skills and knowledge, but also promoting social cohesion by strengthening intragroup identity and clarifying intergroup relations.