Jagiello et al. propose that humans' social learning is shaped through the lenses of interpreting others' behavior as either an opportunity for instrumental learning or for conventional learning. They suggest that humans switch their focus interchangeably between these two possibilities – much like someone wearing bifocals – based on the social and contextual cues available related to the behavior of interest. We agree with the authors' suggestion that human social learning is guided by these two lenses. We would like to expand on this idea to suggest that the “prescription” of these social learning bifocals is shaped by culture, such that sensitivity to particular cues and thus the readiness with which the instrumental or conventional lenses are used to view behavior is fine-tuned by cultural norms. Below, we support this idea with examples from work examining children's imitation and innovation in distinct cultural contexts.

As indicated by Jagiello et al., research suggests that children across cultural contexts engage in higher fidelity imitation when presented with cues that indicate the goal of a behavior is conventional rather than instrumental (e.g., Clegg & Legare, Reference Clegg and Legare2016; see also Rawlings, Dutra, Turner, & Flynn, Reference Rawlings, Dutra, Turner, Flynn, Jones, Platt, Mize and Hardin2019). This same work also suggests that baseline imitative fidelity might be higher in cultural contexts that privilege conformity over creativity (Clegg & Legare, Reference Clegg and Legare2016; Clegg, Wen, & Legare, Reference Clegg, Wen and Legare2017; Wen, Clegg, & Legare, Reference Wen, Clegg and Legare2019). To illustrate this, we will focus on one such cross-cultural comparison between children from the United States and Vanuatu based on on-going work examining imitation, innovation, and children's sociocultural contexts.

When presented with the same necklace-making task, U.S. and Ni-Vanuatu children engaged in higher imitative fidelity if given a conventional goal for the task than if given an instrumental goal; thus, displaying use of social learning bifocals. When comparing children's imitation after being presented with an instrumental goal, however, the Ni-Vanuatu children engaged in higher fidelity imitation compared to the U.S. children (Clegg & Legare, Reference Clegg and Legare2016). One possible explanation for the difference in U.S. and Ni-Vanuatu children's imitation when presented with an instrumental cue is that their bifocals have slightly different prescriptions, with Ni-Vanuatu children's bifocals focusing more readily on the conventional lens. The tendency to use one lens versus another is shaped by the social norms of each culture. These social norms are implicitly and explicitly communicated and reinforced by children's learning partners (both caregivers and peers) and include beliefs about the importance of conformity. This possibility is supported by work examining such beliefs which found that Ni-Vanuatu adults are more likely than U.S. adults to endorse children's high conformity in a necklace-making task as indicative of a child being intelligent and well-behaved (Clegg et al., Reference Clegg, Wen and Legare2017).

In addition, caregivers' ethnotheories about children's learning (e.g., Harkness & Super, Reference Harkness, Super and Bornstein2002) and experience with formal education (e.g., Greenfield, Reference Greenfield2009) impact how they guide children's learning and attention (Rogoff et al., Reference Rogoff, Mistry, Göncü, Mosier, Chavajay and Heath1993). We propose that these cultural factors, in turn, also adjust the prescription of children's social learning bifocals. Further evidence for this can be illustrated by additional research comparing Ni-Vanuatu and U.S. children's learning environments. When working together with children to complete a puzzle, Ni-Vanuatu caregivers used practices consistent with expectations that children learn using observation whereas their U.S. counterparts engaged in high levels of scaffolding and direct instruction (Clegg et al., Reference Clegg, Wen, DeBaylo, Alcott, Keltner and Legare2021; as a note, these findings are consistent with Chavajay & Rogoff [Reference Chavajay and Rogoff2002] and Hewlett, Fouts, Boyette, & Hewlett [Reference Hewlett, Fouts, Boyette and Hewlett2011] among others). These different teaching norms may coincide with children's tendency to use the conventional or instrumental lenses more readily in different cultures. When observational learning is expected, it may be more efficient to use the conventional lens and focus on closely replicating an observed process until more expertise is gained (for a review, see Hoehl et al., Reference Hoehl, Keupp, Schleihauf, McGuigan, Buttelmann and Whiten2019). Thus, because of a greater cultural value placed on conformity and observational learning, Ni-Vanuatu children may have a prescription that is more attuned to the conventional lens. In contrast, U.S. children's bifocal prescription may tend toward the instrumental lens because of a greater emphasis placed on creativity and direct instruction.

Finally, as Jagiello et al. note, innovation represents the other side of the cultural evolutionary coin, affording the generation of new behaviors, customs, and technology. As such, although the authors present the bifocal stance theory to challenge a tendency to focus on innovation within work on cultural evolution and instead shift the focus to high-fidelity transmission of cultural traditions and rituals, we also propose that just as the lenses of the social learning bifocals are shaped by culture, the same must be true of innovation. Cultural variation in societal norms, institutions, and values likely contribute to cultural variation in the prescription of children's bifocal lenses that result in different approaches to innovation. Research examining differences in children's innovation across cultures lends support for this possibility. Urban non-Indigenous Australian children demonstrated higher success rates on tool-based innovation tasks than rural Indigenous Australian children, and children in Vanuatu and rural South Africa (Neldner, Mushin, & Nielsen, Reference Neldner, Mushin and Nielsen2017, Reference Neldner, Redshaw, Murphy, Tomaselli, Davis, Dixson and Nielsen2019). As with the differences in imitation of an instrumental task described above, differences in success in innovation tasks between children in post-industrialized and developing countries have also been attributed to differences in an emphasis on conformity and adherence to others' actions and exposure to formal education (Lew-Levy, Pope, Haun, Kline, & Broesch, Reference Lew-Levy, Pope, Haun, Kline and Broesch2021; Rawlings, Reference Rawlings2022). Attending school may facilitate creative capacities through emphasis on problem solving, peer-collaboration, and access to novel information.

Examinations of children's imitation and innovation suggest both consistencies and differences across cultures. This work indicates that cultural values and ethnotheories play an important role in shaping children's social learning behaviors. We thus encourage Jagiello and colleagues to consider that the bifocal lenses of social learning may be shaped by culture and that these lenses impact both children's imitation and innovation.