Although the study conducted by Sulik, Efferson, and McKay focusses around the potential negative influences of social learning (for example, false beliefs that climate change is a hoax), they also acknowledge the potential positive influences of social learning such as its usefulness towards helping society evolve and adapt. For example, it is often beneficial to copy prestigious individuals.

Syracuse University

A common model (figure 1a) used to explain the factors that form collective delusions suggests that individual learning and social learning are two separate paths that can lead to collective delusions. A study done by Justin Sulik, Charles Efferson, and Ryan McKay suggests that there is a third pathway (as shown in figure 1b) that extends from social learning and connects to individual learning. This pathway showing the contribution of social learning to individual learning may explain why collective delusions are robust to disconfirming evidence or how they are maintained even when costly to the individuals holding those misbeliefs.

Further Suggested Pathway in the Psychological Contributions to Collective Delusions

Proposed by Albert Bandura and other researchers, social learning theory is a perspective on learning that incorporates cognitive processes. It evolved from behaviorism but differed by asserting that internal mental states play a crucial role in learning. Unlike pure behaviorism, this theory can explain how learning occurs even without direct external reinforcement, emphasizing the importance of observation and mental processing.

Social Learning Theory

Sulik, J., Efferson, C., &amp; McKay, R. (2021). Collectively jumping to conclusions: social information amplifies the tendency to gather insufficient data. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/vpnxh 

Collectively Jumping to Conclusions: Social Information Amplifies the Tendency to Gather Insufficient Data

In order to test the effects of social learning on individual learning the study had participants do a probabilistic reasoning task, the bead task. All participants were told that the urn full of beads either had 40 pink beads and 60 green or 40 green beads and 60 pink beads and their goal was to guess the correct majority. Money would be given to those who guessed correctly in order to incentivize the participants. The participants could choose to look at the colors of 0-15 beads, however the more beads they picked, the more money was subtracted from their $.15 endowment. The control group completed this task without any given social information of the other participants’ actions. The experimental group was provided social information (irrelevant to the actual answer) that only told them how many beads had been drawn by the previous participant, the colors of those beads were not included in the information.

Experiment Set-Up for Study of How Social Information Amplifies the Tendency to Gather Insufficient Data

Further Discussion on the Influences of Social Learning

People who trust their intuitions also tend to make decisions with less evidence; this tendency is referred to as the jumping to conclusions (JTC) bias. This bias impacts individual learning by causing people to gather less evidence about the state of the world.

Jumping to Conclusions (JTC) Bias

Albert Bandura's key contribution to learning theory was the concept of vicarious learning, more commonly known as observational learning. This process involves learning by observing the behavior of another person, or model, and the consequences of that behavior. Bandura proposed that this form of learning is crucial for personality development, as individuals acquire not just single actions but entire patterns of behavior by watching others. Unlike learning through direct experience, observational learning allows for the acquisition of complex behaviors without personal trial and error.

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