Animal Culture and Observational Learning Chimpanzee tribes in the wild develop their own unique “cultures” or behavioral differences in tool use, foraging skills, and even courtship rituals (Hopper & others, 2007). Other species, too, acquire and transmit distinct behavior patterns through observational learning (Allen & others, 2013; van de Waal, 2013). For example, consider a clever field experiment by psychologist Erica van de Waal and her colleagues (2013). Wild adult vervet monkeys developed a preference for pink corn over blue corn after the researchers treated the blue corn with a bitter-tasting substance. The colors were switched for nearby vervet monkey groups, who quickly became partial to the blue corn. After several months, the researchers stopped treating the corn, but the monkeys still ate only the preferred color of corn. And, so did infant monkeys who had never been exposed to bitter-tasting corn of either color. Imitating their mothers, they ate the same color corn that she did, and ignored the other corn.

Erica van de Waal