A shared narrative in the literature on the evolution of cooperation maintains that social learning evolves early to allow for the transmission of cumulative culture. Social norms, whilst present at the outset, only rise to prominence later on, mainly to stabilise cooperation against the threat of defection. In contrast, I argue that once we consider insights from social epistemology, an expansion of this narrative presents itself: An interesting kind of social norm — an epistemic coordination norm — was operative in early and important instances of specialised social learning. I show how there’s a need for such norms in two key social learning strategies and explain how this need is constituted. In assessor-teaching (e.g. Castro et al., 2019b, 2021), epistemic coordination norms allow agents to coordinate around the content of social learning, i.e., what is to be known and how this is to be done. These norms also allow agents to coordinate around the form of cultural learning in what’s sometimes called strategic social learning (Laland, 2004; Hoppitt & Laland, 2013; Heyes, 2018, Chap. 5) and elsewhere. Broadly speaking, this concerns how cultural learning is organised within the social group. The upshot is that the evolution of social learning and social norms are intertwined in important and underappreciated ways from early on. The above matters as it informs our views about the evolution of social norms more generally. Truly social norms emerged to coordinate a plurality of complex behaviours and interactions, amongst them specialised social learning. I substantiate this view by contrasting it with Jonathan Birch’s views on the evolution of norms. What results is a general but cohesive narrative on the early evolution of social norms.

关于合作演变的文献中的一个共同叙述认为，社会学习的早期发展是为了允许累积文化的传播。社会规范虽然在一开始就存在，但后来才变得突出，主要是为了稳定合作以应对叛逃的威胁。相比之下，我认为，一旦我们考虑来自社会认识论的见解，这种叙述的扩展就会出现：一种有趣的社会规范——一种认知协调规范——在专业社会学习的早期和重要实例中发挥作用。我展示了两种关键的社会学习策略如何需要这种规范，并解释了这种需求是如何构成的。在评估者教学中（例如 Castro 等人，2019b，2021），认知协调规范允许主体围绕社会学习的内容进行协调，即要知道什么以及如何做到这一点。这些规范还允许主体围绕有时被称为战略社会学习的文化学习形式进行协调（Laland，2004；Hoppitt & Laland，2013；Heyes，2018，第 5 章）和其他地方。从广义上讲，这涉及社会群体内文化学习的组织方式。结果是，社会学习和社会规范的演变从一开始就以重要但未被充分认识的方式交织在一起。上述问题很重要，因为它更广泛地告诉我们对社会规范演变的看法。真正的社会规范的出现是为了协调多种复杂的行为和互动，其中包括专门的社会学习。我通过将其与乔纳森·伯奇关于规范演变的观点进行对比来证实这一观点。结果是对社会规范早期演变的一般性但有凝聚力的叙述。