Up to this point, we have concentrated on social learning and its consequences in nuclear and extended families, where information is transferred between mates, between biological or adoptive parents and their offspring, between helpers and those they help, and among sibs. We now want to widen our discussion to see what goes on in those species of birds and mammals that are highly social, living in more or less permanent groups composed of both related and unrelated individuals. Our aim in this chapter is not to carry out an extensive review of the social group-life of birds and mammals. Rather, we want to look at some aspects of behaviour and psychology that throw light on the formation and maintenance of group traditions, and see how these group traditions themselves influence, directly or indirectly, the evolutionary development of social behaviour. We shall show how the various psychological mechanisms that serve to organise and co-ordinate the activities of a group depend on a constant flow of information among its members. This flow of information is mediated through social learning and maintained by frequent social interactions.

Before starting this discussion, we want to take a close look at the real-life intricacies of a group-living social mammal. So, imagine a cloudless day in January, in the Kalahari desert of south-west Africa, where we are watching the activities of meerkats, the social mongooses that live in small groups on the dry, open plain along the Nossob river.