Jul 24, 2009 several hypotheses propose that cooperative breeding leads to increased cognitive performance, in both nonhuman and human primates, but systematic evidence for such a relationship is missing. Cognitive psychology is a section of psychology that studies the cognitive, for example, the cognitive processes of human consciousness. Pdf cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution. Journal of human evolution has two papers dealing with the phenomenon of cooperative breeding in humans, primates and mammals. Great apes possess many of the cognitive prerequisites for language, but largely lack the motivation to share information. Among the species that adopted it, cooperative breeding generally produced changes in psychology toward. Research on the communicative skills of other cooperative breeders. Bobe r, leakey mg 2009 ecology of pliopleistocene mammals in the omoturkana basin and the emergence of homo. When sharon sent me her late husbands draft manuscript, i found that danny not only had the core of an idea to explain the evolution of the human mind but that he also went on to present some.
Recent years have seen the emergence of a novel variant of this hypothesis, suggesting that cooperative breeding is associated with the elaboration of. Cooperative breeding scholars commonly estimate that cooperative breeding arose with homo erectus, ca. Hrdy is professor emerita at the university of california. The hypothesized pathway for a link between cooperative breeding and socio. Burkhart jm, hrdy sb, van schaik cp 2009 cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution. This article is part of a special issue parental care. Cooperative breeding is viewed as a consequence of group territorial behavior, and a nonmathematical model is presented which predicts that maximum positive assistance by nonbreeders to the reproductive success of the breeding pair should occur in situations where it would not otherwise increase the fitness of the breeders to allow nonbreeders. An extension of the social brains hypothesis, known as the cooperative breeding brain hypothesis, postulates that cooperatively breeding species, which live in stable social groups and provide allocare, face particularly pronounced cognitive demands because they must recognize, remember, and differentially respond to multiple group members. The human brain stands out among mammals by being unusually large. Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution j.
These behavioral correlates of cooperative breeding can have implications for understanding human evolution burkart et al. Cooperative feeding and breeding, and the evolution of. Research in this area is usually related to issues of memory, attention, feelings, providing information, logical thinking, imagination, the ability to make decisions. Second, i show that dubreuil likely misdates the occurrence of human cooperative feeding and cooperative breeding section 4.
The cooperative breeding hypothesis predicts that cooperative breeding or extensive allomaternal care is associated with a set of proximate mechanisms necessary to support and enable allomaternal behaviours. Variable postpartum responsiveness among humans and other. The evolution of cooperative breeding is particularly complex in humans because many other traits that directly affect parental care shorter birth intervals, increased offspring survivorship, juvenile dependence, and older ages at dispersal also emerge during the pleistocene. I argue that a cooperative breeding model provides a more compelling explanation for distinctive human emotional and mental aptitudes than do competing hypotheses. Unraveling the evolution of uniquely human cognition. By this definition, humans are cooperative breeders, but our cooperative breeding. Cooperative breeding is found in only a few hundred bird species worldwide, and understanding this often strikingly altruistic behaviour has remained an. She is considered a highly recognized pioneer in modernizing our understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both nonhuman and human primates.
Newton, nicole naar, lesley newson, cody ross, paul e. Therefore, although the whole of human cognition may be unparalleled in the animal kingdom, key components of our cognitive phenotype can be found in other taxa, including not only great apes, but also more distantly related species bearing cognitive resemblances to humans as a result of convergent evolution. Similarities between cooperative breeding among humans and among platyrrhines are strikingly concrete and specific. Despite sharing a recent common ancestor, humans are surprisingly different from other great apes. Cooperative breeding may be viewed primarily as a means by which young adults put off the start of their own breeding in order to maximize their lifetime reproductive output, and in the process occasionally promote genes identical with their own via kin selection. The expensivetissue hypothesis 1 explains its evolution by proposing a tradeoff between the size of the brain and that of the. The most obvious discontinuities are related to our cognitive abilities, including language, but we also have a markedly different, coopera. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read a cooperative species. The most obvious discontinuities are related to our cognitive. Bringing together longterm studies of cooperatively breeding birds, mammals, and fishes, cooperative breeding in vertebrates provides a synthesis of current studies in the field. Alternative cognitive explanations of hunting and food sharing. No evidence for larger brains in cooperatively breeding. The demands associated with living in complex social groups have been the favored explanation for the evolution of primate cognition in general and human cognition in particular. A sketch of the evidence volume 39 peter richerson, ryan baldini, adrian v.
Pdf despite sharing a recent common ancestor, humans are surprisingly different from other great apes. Nov 20, 20 in particular, cooperative breeding has been identified as a potentially crucial factor in the evolution of human prosociality and our tremendous cognitive advantage over our nearest relatives, the great apes. I synthesize the emerging evidence that foraging cognition. In addition to helping to explain the extraordinary demographic expansion of the human species, cooperative breeding has important implications for understanding the evolution of human life history traits such as early weaning, longer periods of postweaning dependence and longer maternal lifespans, as well as such characteristically human. Cooperative feeding and breeding, and the evolution of executive. The evolution of group territorial behavior and cooperative. Fitness tradeoffs in the history and evolution of delegated mothering with. Many hypotheses have been presented to explain the evolution of cooperative breeding. This concept is hard to understand and the evolution of cooperative breeding is important, but difficult to explain.
Bell, kathryn demps, karl frost, vicken hillis, sarah mathew, emily k. A causal link might exist because motivational and cognitive processes necessary for the execution and coordination of helping behaviors could also favor cognitive performance in contexts not directly. Cooperative breeding is found in only a few hundred bird species worldwide, and understanding this often strikingly altruistic behaviour has remained an important challenge in behavioural ecology for over 30 years. Using an integrated data set from the fossil record and contemporary human and nonhuman primate biology, we provide a fresh perspective on three important shifts in human evolutionary history. Although several recent volumes have summarized the state of our knowledge of the ecology and evolution of cooperative breeding in birds, cooperative breeding in mammals is the first book devoted to these issues in mammals, and it will appeal to zoologists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and those interested in animal behavior. Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution, evolutionary anthropology 18 2009. The derivation of hamiltons rule is clean, intuitive, and simple. Here we propose that these cognitive consequences of cooperative breeding could have become more pervasive in the human lineage because the psychological changes were added to an apelevel cognitive system capable of understanding simple mental states, albeit mainly in competitive contexts. Cooperative breeding center for academic research and. Suppose there is an allele at a locus of a haploid organism that leads individual a to incur a fitness cost c that bestows a fitness gain b on individual b. Comparative evidence for cooperative breeding in early homo by karin. Journal of economic literature a cooperative species. This article focuses on the critical role that children themselves play.
Energetics and the evolution of human brain size nature. We propose that during human evolution improved diet quality, allomaternal subsidies, cognitive buffering, reduced locomotion costs and reduced. Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution burkart. Cooperative breeders are species in which more than a pair of individuals assist in the production of young. The cooperative breeding hypothesis predicts that cooperative breeding or extensive allomaternal care is associated with a set of proximate mechanisms necessary.
Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution citeseerx. We propose that the evolution of these derived features was a consequence of the adoption of cooperative breeding by early homo. Cooperative breeding hypothesis, prosociality, social tolerance, callitrichid monkeys. The role of cooperative breeding in modern human evolution. According to the cooperative breeding hypothesis, allomaternal assistance was essential for child survival during the pleistocene. This book challenges kin selection theory as a basis for various forms of reciprocity and cooperation. A causal link might exist because motivational and cognitive processes necessary for the execution and coordination of helping behaviors could also favor cognitive performance in contexts. Since extrapair paternity is relatively uncommon in socially monogamous and cooperatively breeding mammals, our analyses support the suggestion that high levels of average kinship between group members have played an important role in the evolution of cooperative breeding in nonhuman mammals, as well as in birds and insects.
Revisiting the consequences of cooperative breeding uzh. Cognitive consequences of cooperative breeding in primates. Language is a cognitively demanding human trait, but it is also a fundamentally cooperative enterprise that rests on the motivation to share information. Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation. This breeding system permitted hominid females to produce offspring without increasing interbirth intervals, and allowed for movement into new habitats. Long term studies of ecology and behaviour a variety of authors give detailed and fascinating descriptions of cooperation in birds, from the splendid fairywren and noisy miner of australia to such birds as the green woodhoopoe and arabian babbler of the great rift valley desert belts to a number of.
In most cooperatively breeding species, helpers are offspring that remain with. The authors almost start with the fact that we cooperate for mutual benefit, that we will even extend benefits to nonrelated others at a cost to ourselves true altruism, and that such otherregardedness can and does extend to strangers. Cooperative breeding theory was developed in biology to explain a social system found in relatively few animals in which nonparental members of a social group help to support offspring. Because the human subsistence niche incorporates a broad diversity of resources that require variable procurement and processing costs, dependent children can also be important producers, furthering both a need and an opportunity for cooperative breeding. Humans and chimps are the most unlike in on these measures, with humans showing a very similar profile to callitrichids. Nonhuman primates, including the great apes, are curiously constrained by weak motor. Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline their mothers lineage and which can involve the inheritance of property andor titles. Among primates, humans and callitrichid monkeys are the only. Cooperative breeding is a widespread and intense form of cooperation, in which individuals help raise offspring that are not their own. Callitrichids including marmosets and tamarins are highly vocal monkeys that are more distantly related to humans. Human reciprocity and its evolution ebook written by samuel bowles, herbert gintis. Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution.
Human reciprocity and its evolution states a clearly articulated geneculture coevolution explanation for why we are a cooperative species. Early homo fossils are also the earliest hominin fossils to be found associated with the drier. In particular, cooperative breeding has been identified as a potentially crucial factor in the evolution of human prosociality and our tremendous cognitive. Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation. Recent years have seen the emergence of a novel variant of this hypothesis, suggesting that cooperative breeding is associated with the elaboration of socio cognitive abilities.
Suppose the frequency of this allele in the population is q, and the probability that b has a copy of the allele is p. May 01, 2011 this book challenges kin selection theory as a basis for various forms of reciprocity and cooperation. Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and. Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution wiley online.
Abstract despite sharing a recent common ancestor, humans are surprisingly different from other great apes. Several hypotheses propose that cooperative breeding leads to increased cognitive performance, in both nonhuman and human primates, but systematic evidence for such a relationship is missing. Hrdy university of california, department of anthropology, davis, ca 956168522, u. First, cooperative breeding is favored where successful dispersal is difficult, and infant helping positively affects survival rates. The most obvious discontinuities are related to our cognitive abilities, including language, but we also have a markedly different, cooperative breeding system. In particular, cooperative breeding has been identified as a potentially crucial factor in the evolution of human prosociality and our tremendous cognitive advantage over our nearest relatives, the great apes 8, 29. This behaviour is particularly well studied in birds, using both longterm and comparative studies that have provided insights into the evolution of reproductive altruism. Most scholars of language evolution recognize that the first use of language, in particular words, presupposed an unusual ability to cooperate. Jun 07, 2012 since extrapair paternity is relatively uncommon in socially monogamous and cooperatively breeding mammals, our analyses support the suggestion that high levels of average kinship between group members have played an important role in the evolution of cooperative breeding in non human mammals, as well as in birds and insects. How our ancestors broke through the gray ceiling jstor. The chapters are organised by individual studies of particular species or in the case of molerats two closely related cooperatively breeding species. Cooperative breeding and human evolution request pdf. Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution semantic.
However, recent comparative research indicates that ecological variation can also shape cognitive abilities. Is this extraordinary complexity a product of cognitive evolution, cultural evolution or some interaction of the two. Sep 24, 2009 we propose that the evolution of these derived features was a consequence of the adoption of cooperative breeding by early homo. Cooperative breeding and the evolution of vocal flexibility oxford. Answering this question will require a much better understanding of patterns of increasing cultural diversity, complexity and rates of change in human evolution. Let me start with dubreuils timing of cooperative breeding.
What evolutionary biology can tell us about cooperation and trust in online networks. The concept behind cooperative breeding is the forfeiting of an individuals reproductive fitness to aid the reproductive success of others. Cooperative breeding and monogamy in mammalian societies. Comparative studies of social insects and birds show that the evolution of cooperative and eusocial breeding systems has been confined to species where females mate completely or almost exclusively with a single male, indicating that high levels of average kinship between group members are necessary for the evolution of reproductive altruism. Until recently, evolutionists reconstructing motherinfant bonding among human ancestors relied on nonhuman primate models characterized by exclusively maternal care, overlooking the highly variable responsiveness exhibited by mothers in species with obligate reliance on allomaternal care and provisioning. In traditional human societies, numerous studies document that a variety of kin and nonkin of different ages. Occasional cooperative breeding in birds and the robustness. Van schaik despite sharing a recent common ancestor, humans are surprisingly different from other great apes. What evolutionary biology can tell us about cooperation and. First, i explain that cooperative feeding and cooperative breeding are poor. Recent fossil and archaeological finds have complicated our interpretation of the origin and early evolution of genus homo.
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