Someone forgot to tell a group of 15-month-old infants they are flawed and that without proper (religious or moral) instruction, they will be unfair and selfish. Rather than being born this way, they appear to have been born another way: with built-in expectations of fairness and a willingness to share. These are the conclusions reached [...]
Tags:altruism·cooperation·infants·Jessica Sommerville·Marco Schmidt·moral faculty·moral sense·morals·prosocial·sharing
No one who has ever kept rats as pets (as I have) will be surprised by a study that appeared in yesterday’s Science and is getting major media coverage. In “Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats,” the authors report:
Whereas human pro-social behavior is often driven by empathic concern for another, it is unclear whether [...]
Tags:altruism·cooperation·group size·Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal·Jean Decety·non-human primates·Peggy Mason·primates·prosocial behavior·rats·reciprocal altruism·religion as evolved adaptation
A recent press release from Washington University in St. Louis touts a new book, Origins of Altruism and Cooperation, edited by anthropologist Robert Sussman: “The book’s authors argue that humans are naturally cooperative, altruistic and social, only reverting to violence when stressed, abused, neglected or mentally ill.”
Because stress, abuse, neglect, and illness are [...]
Tags:altruism·cooperation·Origins of Altruism and Cooperation·Robert Sussman
In Ars Poetica (“The Art of Poetry”), the great Roman lyricist Horace counsels against using gods to resolve thorny plots. The deus ex machina is simply too tidy and unbelievable. When gods swoop in to save the day, the mundane becomes sacred. Metaphysics to the rescue.
I was reminded of Horace’s enduring wisdom by two recent [...]
Tags:altruism·Andrew Delton·Ars Poetica·collective action·cooperation·deus ex machina·ethnolinguistic·free riders·generosity·group level selection·Horace·John Tooby·kinship·Leda Cosmides·Max Krasnow·prosociality·punishment·reciprocity·Robert Boyd·Sarah Mathew·Turkana·warfare
In evolutionary biology, few issues have caused more debate than altruism or what appears to be altruism. It is generally accepted that selection operates on individual organisms and that these organisms are selfishly interested in their own survival and reproduction. Another way of stating this is that individual organisms are interested solely in passing along [...]
Tags:altruism·archetypal·Carl Jung·cooperation·coyote·culture hero·David Sloan Wilson·E.O. Wilson·Elliot Sober·Franz Boas·George Price·George Williams·group level selection·inclusive fitness·Jerry Coyne·John Maynard Smith·Kantian·kin selection·kindness·Mac Linscott Ricketts·metaphysics·Michael Carroll·multilevel selection·mythology·Native Americans·Oren Harman·Paul Radin·reciprocal altruism·Richard Dawkins·Robert Trivers·selfish genes·selfishness·The Price of Altruism·Trickster·unit of selection·William Hamilton
There are a number of scholars who claim that “religion” evolved as an adaptation. What kind of adaptation? A group level adaptation. The story usually goes like this: at some unknown time during the middle or upper Paleolithic, certain groups of hominins developed proto-religious beliefs. These beliefs supposedly caused group members to dance, sing, and [...]
Tags:affinity·Barry Hewlett·Brian Wood·Claude Levi-Straus·cohesion·consanguinity·cooperation·extended kinship·fictive kinship·foragers·Frank Marlowe·group agonism·group competition·group level selection·group size·inclusive fitness·James Eder·Kim Hill·kinship·language·Lewis Henry Morgan·Magdalena Hurtado·prosocial·proto-religion·residence patterns·residential bands·Robert Walker·social structure·Thomas Headland·tools
In a recent post on group level selection and the evolution of religion, I observed that if we assume such selection was operating on human groups during the Paleolithic, three factors play a major role in determining which groups come out on top. These three factors are: (1) group size, (2) technology, and (3) language. [...]
Tags:altruism·art·behavioral modernity·cooperation·differential fitness·evolution of religion·group agonism·group competition·group level selection·group size·intergroup conflict·language·modern human behavior·ornamentation·Paleolithic·proto-religion·reproduction·Richard Klein·ritual·survival·symbolic thinking·technology·The Human Career·Upper Paleolithic
There are a number of scholars who claim that “religion” evolved as an adaptation. What kind of adaptation? A group level adaptation. The story usually goes like this: at some unknown time during the middle or upper Paleolithic, certain groups of hominins developed proto-religious beliefs. These beliefs, which are rarely if ever specified, somehow gave [...]
Tags:altruism·baboons·chimpanzees·cohesion·competition·cooperation·David Sloan Wilson·ecology·evolution of religion·foraging unit·group agonism·group level selection·group size·hominids·hominins·hunter-gatherers·inclusive fitness·intergroup competition·Joseph Bulbulia·kinship·language·Matt Rossano·Nicholas Wade·Paleolithic·primates·Richard Sosis·ritual·technology·tools
Yet another study has appeared, this one in The Proceedings of the Royal Society, which supposedly shows that religious primes can increase prosocial behavior:
Recent evidence indicates that priming participants with religious concepts promotes prosocial sharing behaviour. In the present study, we investigated whether religious priming also promotes the costly punishment of unfair behaviour. A total [...]
Tags:Charles Efferson·cooperation·costly punishment·deities·Ernst Fehr·fairness·Harvey Whitehouse·morals·neolithic·prosocial·punishment·religious primes·Ryan McKay·spirits·supernatural watchers·surveillance·Wrath of God
A new book, The Prehistory of Compassion, is generating a fair amount of press coverage. The title has a familiar ring to it and seemingly riffs Steven Mithen’s The Prehistory of the Mind. I would not be surprised if this is the case, given that Mithen and the authors are UK archaeologists with Cambridge connections. [...]
Tags:altruism·anthropoids·Antonio Damasio·autism·autistics·Brandon Keim·collaboration·compassion·cooperation·empathy·Eocene·evolution of emotions·feelings·group level selection·invisible agents·Jennifer Viegas·non-physical beings·Penny Spikins·Steven Mithen·The Prehistory of Compassion·The Prehistory of the Mind·World Vision
