Fig. 1.

Consistent individual differences in social learning strategies. In part 1 of the experiment, 86.7% of all information requests fell into two categories: subjects either asked for frequency-information (i.e., the decisions of all four group members in the previous round) or they asked for success-information (i.e., the combination of decision and corresponding payoff for two group members in the previous round). (A) Classification of individuals with respect to the fraction of requests an individual targeted at success-information in part 1 of the experiment. In each social context, the histogram reveals a U-shaped distribution: most individuals had extreme social learning strategies, either requesting mainly success-information or requesting mainly frequency-information. (B) Consistency of social learning strategies across the three social contexts in part 1 of the experiment. For each context, individuals were classified as either focused on frequency (more than 50% of their requests used for frequency-information) or focused on success (more than 50% used for success-information). The graph depicts the eight possible combinations of frequency- and success-focus across the three social contexts; the size of the circles indicates the number of individuals falling in each category. The individuals that were consistent over all social contexts are highlighted; consistent frequency-based learners (69) in orange and consistent success-based learners (23) in purple. Ninety-two of the 145 subjects (63.4%) who requested information in at least one round of each social context were consistent across all three contexts. (C) Consistency in the number of information requests over time (between part 1 and part 2 of the experiment, summed over all social contexts) and (D) consistency in type of information requested between part 1 and part 2 (the fraction of information pieces requested that were used for success-information, over all social contexts). In both C and D, the size of the dots indicates number of individuals (the smallest dots representing single individuals), and the red lines represent linear regressions (in both cases, R² = 0.454, P < 0.001).