This paper presents a simple mathematical model that shows how economic inequality between social groups can arise and be maintained even when the only adaptive learning processes driving cultural evolution increases individual's economic gains. The key assumption is that human populations are...

There has been much theoretical work aimed at understanding the evolution of social learning; and in most of it, individual and social learning are treated as distinct processes. A number of authors have argued that this approach is faulty because the same psychological mechanisms underpin...

We conducted an experiment to describe how social learners use information about the relation between payoffs and behavior. Players chose between two technologies repeatedly. Payoffs were random, but one technology was better because its expected payoff was higher. Players were divided into two...