Social networks make us smarter: study

Strong social networks may be key to preserving culture and sharpening skills, a new study suggests.

The secret to why some cultures thrive and others disappear may lie in our social networks and our ability to imitate, rather than our individual smarts, according to researchers from University of British Columbia, Canada.

The study shows that when people can observe and learn from a wider range of teachers, groups can better maintain technical skills and even increase the group's average skill over successive generations.

The findings show that a larger population size and social connectedness are crucial for the development of more sophisticated technologies and cultural knowledge, said lead author Michael Muthukrishna, a PhD student in UBC's Department of Psychology.

"This is the first study to demonstrate in a laboratory setting what archaeologists and evolutionary theorists have long suggested: that there is an important link between a society's sociality and the sophistication of its technology," said Muthukrishna, who co-authored the research with UBC Professor Joseph Henrich.

For the study, participants were asked to learn new skills - digital photo editing and knot-tying - and then pass on what they learned to the next "generation" of participants.

The groups with greater access to experts accumulated significantly more skill than those with less access to teachers.

Within ten "generations," each member of the group with multiple mentors had stronger skills than the group limited to a single mentor.

Groups with greater access to experts also retained their skills much longer than groups who began with less access to mentors, sustaining higher levels of "cultural knowledge" over multiple generations.

According to the researchers, the study has important implications for several areas, from skills development and education to protecting endangered languages and cultural practises.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Academy: Biological Sciences.