Prestige cues represent a kind of second-order cultural learning in which we figure out who to learn from

From The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich. Page 42.

By observing whom others watch, listen to, defer to, hang-around, and imitate, learners can more effectively figure out from whom to learn. Using these “prestige cues” allows learners to take advantage of the fact that other people also are seeking, and have obtained, insights about who in the local community is likely to possess useful, adaptive information. Once people have identified a person as worthy of learning from, perhaps because they’ve learned about their success, they necessarily need to be around them, watching, listening, and eliciting information through interaction. Since they are trying to obtain information, learners defer to their chosen models in conversation, often giving them “the floor.” And, of course, learners automatically and unconsciously imitate their chosen models, including by matching their speech patterns (see chapter 8). Thus, we humans are sensitive to a set of ethological patterns (bodily postures or displays), including visual attention, “holding the floor,” deference in conversation, and vocal mimicry, as well as others. We use these prestige cues to help us rapidly zero in on whom to learn from. In essence, prestige cues represent a kind of second-order cultural learning in which we figure out who to learn from by inferring from the behavior of others who they think are worthy of learning from—that is, we culturally learn from whom to learn.

Despite the seeming ubiquity of this phenomenon in the real world, there is actually relatively little direct experimental evidence that people use prestige cues. There is an immense amount of indirect evidence that shows how the prestige of a person or source, such as a newspaper or celebrity, increases the persuasiveness of what they say or the tendency of people to remember what they say. This effect occurs even when the prestige of a person comes from a domain, like golf, that is far removed from the issue they are commenting on (like automobile quality). This provides some evidence, though it does not get at the specific cues that learners might actually use to guide them, aside from being told that someone is an “expert” or “the best.”

To address this in our laboratory, Maciej Chudek, Sue Birch, and I tested this prestige idea more directly. Sue is a developmental psychologist and Maciej was my graduate student (he did all the real work). We had preschoolers watch a video in which they saw two different potential models use the same object in one of two different ways. In the video, two bystanders entered, looked at both models, and then preferentially watched one of them. The visual attention of the bystanders provided a “prestige cue” that seemingly marked one of the two potential models. Then, participants saw each model select one of two different types of unfamiliar foods and one of two differently colored beverages. They also saw each model use a toy in one of two distinct ways. After the video, the kids were permitted to select one of the two novel foods and one of the two colorful beverages. They could also use the toy any way they wanted. Children were 13 times more likely to use the toy in the same manner as the the prestige-cued model compared to the other model. They were also about 4 times more likely to select the food or beverage preferred by the prestige-cued model. Based on questions asked at the end of the experiment, the children had no conscious or expressible awareness of the prestige cues or their effects. These experiments show that young children rapidly and unconsciously tune into the visual attention of others and use it to direct their cultural learning. We are prestige biased, as well as being skill and success biased.

Chapter 8 expands on these ideas to explore how selective cultural learning drove the evolution of a second form of social status in humans called Prestige, which in our species resides alongside the Dominance status we inherited from our primate ancestors. We’ll see why, for example, it is possible to become famous for being famous in the modern world.