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Human adaptability relies on our capacity to learn, either from others (socially) or by ourselves (asocially), and to update our strategy repertoire. Cognitive flexibility is the psychological mechanism that mediates strategy use. Humans excel at switching from strategies that no longer work to new ones, but when given the chance to voluntarily switch from familiar to better strategies (elective flexibility), we often exhibit remarkable difficulty. However, current research has shown that this may be mediated by exogenous factors such as cultural background and age. The present study used a four-task battery to investigate the impact of social vs. asocial information sources on the development of elective flexibility in children (ages 4 to 14) from three cultural contexts: hunter-gatherer BaYaka; horticulturalists/fisherman Bandongo; and urbanized German. Our data show that German children exhibited overall higher elective flexibility than their Congolese peers whose elective flexibility decreased with age. Interestingly, children across all communities showed less elective flexibility when they learned a strategy socially than when they acquired it themselves. The present study provides important insights on the influence of eco-cultural contexts on the development of adaptive problem-solving, and the impact of social learning on children’s elective flexibility.

Compared to other species, the extent of human cooperation is unparalleled. Such cooperation is coordinated between community members via social norms. Developmental research has demonstrated that very young children are sensitive to social norms, and that social norms are internalized by middle childhood. Most research on social norm acquisition has focused on norms that modulate intra-group cooperation. Yet around the world, multi-ethnic communities also cooperate, and this cooperation is often shaped by distinct inter-group social norms. In the present study, we investigated whether intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic social norm acquisition follows the same, or distinct, developmental trajectories. Specifically, we worked with BaYaka foragers and Bandongo fisher-farmers who inhabit multi-ethnic villages in the Republic of the Congo. In these villages, inter-ethnic cooperation is regulated by sharing norms. Based on our ethnographic knowledge of the participating communities, we predicted that children’s intra-ethnic sharing choices would match those of adults at an earlier age than their inter-ethnic sharing choices. To test this prediction, children (5–17 years) and adults (17 + years) participated in a modified Dictator Game to investigate the developmental trajectories of children’s intra- and inter-ethnic sharing choices. Contrary to our prediction, both intra- and inter-ethnic sharing norms were acquired in middle childhood. Interviews with adult participants suggested that intra- and inter-ethnic sharing norms are acquired from multiple sources, including parents and peers. Further, Bandongo adults primarily reported learning sharing norms via Instruction, whereas BaYaka adults primarily reported learning via Observation/Imitation. These cross-cultural differences may reflect variation in norm complexity. Together, these findings suggest that when social contexts regularly expose children to out-group collaboration, inter-ethnic norms are acquired at similar timelines to intra-ethnic ones, as part of children’s broader cooperative repertoire.