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Dr Rachel Kendal (nee Day)

(email at rachel.kendal@durham.ac.uk)

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

• Psychology: Social Learning
• Anthropology: Behavioural Innovation
• Anthropology: Social Learning

Biography

I completed a BSc in Behavioural Science at Nottingham University in 1998, then went on to receive my PhD in Zoology from Cambridge University in 2003. Following a career break, I began a Royal Society Dorothy Hoddgkin Fellowship in 2006, based in the Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution at St Andrews University. I continued this fellowship here in the Department of Anthropology before becoming a lecturer in 2012.

I am interested in social learning and behavioural innovation in a range of species from fish to apes to humans. My approach emphasises the importance of maintaining ecological validity, the integration of empirical and theoretical work and application to animal welfare and conservation.

My current research is concerned with (i) developing methods to identify traditions in the wild, (ii) investigating social learning strategies in animals (including humans), and (iii) understanding why non-human primates appear to lack cumulative culture; all with a view to understanding their implications for the evolution of human culture. I have worked with, or am currently working with, laboratory populations of fish (guppies, mollies and sticklebacks) , captive (callitrichids, capuchins, lemurs, chimpanzees, Barbary macaques), and wild primates (lemurs, capuchins), as well as children.

If you are interested in the topic of identifying social learning in the wild, and the implications for 'culture', then please see the special issue I recently co-edited on the topic and the below link to free-ware for many of the associated methods.

Potential Projects for Posgraduate Research

The following is a list of areas in which I would be happy to supervise PhD students but they do not represent funded opportunities:

1. Investigating the role of indivdiual differences and social networks in the transmission of novel information through human and non-human animal groups.

2. Investigating social learning strategies in human and non-human animals.

3. Assessing evidence for cumulative culture in human and non-human animals.

4. Developing simulations of asocial and social learning based on parameters collected in the field.

5. Assessing the validity of putative traditions, seen in the wild, using captive groups of primates.

6. Applications of behavioural research to animal welfare and/or conservation and science communication. 

Supervisees

Ms Kayleigh Carr: Understanding the process of behavioural innovation (with Dr Emma Flynn, Durham University)

Ms Cara Evans: Interactions of social learning and cooperation (with Prof Kevin Laland, St Andrews University)

Ms Camilla Galheigo Coelho: Social dynamics and diffusion of novel behaviour patterns in wild Capuchin monkeys (with Prof Eduardo Ottoni, Sao Paulo University, Brazil)

Ms Andrea Donaldson: Primate reintroductions in Coral Rag Forest, Kenya. (with Dr Russ Hill, Durham University)

Ms Gill Vale: Cumulative culture in chimpanzees and children. (with Dr Emma Flynn, Durham University)

Ms Lara Wood: Social learning strategies in chimpanzees and children. (with Dr Emma Flynn, Durham University)

Dr Lewis Dean (2011): Cumulative culture in human, and non-human, primates. (with Prof. Kevin Laland, St Andrews University)

Research Interests

• Social Learning
• Behavioural Innovation
• Cultural Evolution
• Applications to Welfare, Conservation & Science Communication

Selected Publications

Books: sections

• Kendal RL, Coolen I & Laland KN. (2009). Adaptive Trade-offs in the use of Social and Personal Information. In Cognitive Ecology II. Dukas, R & Ratcliffe, J Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 249-271.
• Laland KN, Kendal JR & Kendal RL. (2009). Animal culture: problems and solutions. In The Question of Animal Culture. Laland, KN & Galef. BG Jr. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Edited works: journals

• Kendal, RL, Galef, BG & van Schaik, CP (2010). Capturing Social Learning in Natural Contexts: Methodological Insights and Implications for Culture. Learning & Behavior, 8 (3).

Journal papers: academic

• Wood LA,, Kendal RL, & Flynn EG. (2013). Copy me or copy you? The effect of prior experience on social learning. Cognition 127(2): 203-213.
• Flynn E.G., Laland K.N., Kendal R.L. & Kendal J.R. (2013). Developmental niche construction. Developmental Science 16(2): 296-313.
• Wood LA,, Kendal RL, & Flynn EG (2012). Context-dependent model-based biases in cultural transmission: children's imitation is affected by model age over model knowledge state. Evolution and Human Behavior 33(4): 387-394.
• Vale, G.L., Flynn, E.G. & Kendal, R.L. (2012). Cumulative culture and future thinking: Is mental time travel a prerequisite to cumulative cultural evolution?. Learning and Motivation 43: 220-230.
• Dean LG,, Kendal RL,, Schapiro SJ,, Thierry B, & Laland KN. (2012). Identification of the social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture. Science 335(6072): 1114-1118.
• Kendal, RL, Custance, D, Kendal, JR, Vale, G, Stoinski, T, Rakotomalala, NI & Rasaminanana, H (2010). Evidence for social learning in wild lemurs (Lemur catta). Learning & Behavior 38(3): 220-234.
• Kendal, RL, Galef, BG & van Schaik, CP (2010). Social learning research outside the laboratory: How and Why?. Learning & Behavior 38(3): 187-194.
• Kendal, RL, Kendal, JR, Hoppitt, W & Laland, KN (2009). Identifying social learning in animal populations: A new ‘option-bias’ method. PLoS ONE 4(8): e6541.
• Stanley EL,, Kendal RL,, Kendal JR,, Grounds S, & Laland KN. (2008). Factors affecting the stability of foraging traditions in fishes. Animal Behaviour 75: 565-572.
• Hoppitt W, Brown GR, Kendal RL, , Rendell L, Thornton A,, Webster M, & Laland KN. (2008). Lessons from animal teaching. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23: 486-493.
• Kendal JR, , Kendal RL, & Laland KN. (2007). Quantifying and modeling social learning processes in monkey populations. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy 7(2): 123-138.
• Kendal RL,, Coe RL, & Laland KN. (2005). Age differences in neophilia, exploration and innovation in family groups of callitrichid monkeys. American Journal of Primatology 66: 167-188.
• Kendal RL, , Coolen I, van Bergen Y, & Laland KN. (2005). Tradeoffs in the adaptive use of social and asocial learning. Advances in the Study of Behavior 35: 333-379.
• Kendal RL,, Coolen I, & Laland KN. (2004). The role of conformity in foraging when personal and social information conflict. Behavioral Ecology 15(2): 269-277.
• Day RL,, Coe RL,, Kendal JR, & Laland KN. (2003). Neophilia, innovation and social learning: A study of intergeneric differences in Callitrichid monkeys. Animal Behaviour 65: 559-571.
• Day RL,, Laland KN, & Odling-Smee J. (2003). Rethinking Adaptation: The Niche Construction Perspective. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 46: 80-95.
• Coolen I,, van Bergen Y,, Day RL, & Laland KN. (2003). Species differences in adaptive use of public information in sticklebacks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 270(1531): 2413-2419.
• Brown C, & Day RL. (2002). The future of stock enhancements: lessons for hatchery practice from conservation biology. Fish and Fisheries 3: 79-94.
• Day RL,, MacDonald T,, Brown C,, Laland KN, & Reader SM. (2001). Interactions between shoal size and conformity in guppy social foraging. Animal Behaviour 62: 917-925.

Journal papers: professional

• Kendal, JR, Tehrani, J & Kendal, RL (2009). The evolution of human behaviour. Quick Guide. Triple Sciences Support Programme in association with RCUK
• Kendal, RL. (2008). Animal ‘Culture Wars’; Evidence from the Wild?. The Psychologist 24: 312-315.

Short Works

• Kendal RL, Dean L & Laland KN. (2007). Objectivism should not be a casualty of innovation’s operationalization. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 30(4): 413-414.
• Laland KN,, Coolen I, & Kendal RL. (2005). Why not use public information?. Science 308: 354-355.
• Day RL,, Coolen I,, van Bergen Y, & Laland KN. (2003). Commentary upon article, 'Social Conventions in Wild White-faced Capuchin Monkeys'. Current Anthropology 44: 258-259.
• Day RL,, Kendal JR, & Laland KN, (2001). Validating cultural transmission in Cetaceans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24: 330-331.

Theses: PhD

• Day RL (2003). Innovation and social learning in monkeys and fish: Empirical findings and their application to reintroduction techniques. University of Cambridge. PhD.

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