Studies of social learning in norway rats: A brief review

Abstract I review below some of the research on social learning in Norway rats carried out in my laboratory from 1969 to 1980. Two independent lines of research are discussed; both involve analysis in the laboratory of possible instances of social learning first described by observers of free‐living, wild rats. The 1st research program analyzes social interactions important in the transmission of learned food preferences from adult rats to their young. The 2nd examines the possibility that the habit of diving in shallow water for food is socially transmitted from 1 rat to another.