H. Sapiens: The Ultimate Pack Animal

A Review/ Discussion Of Human Culture In Evolutionary Perspective by

Michael Tomasello (2011)

The Problem At Hand

• If culture is viewed as simply the social transmission of behavior, then there are many examples of seemingly cultural behavior throughout the animal kingdom

• This leads to the question “What’s so special about us?”

Cultural Behavior?

The Answer

• Tomasello says we are different because of our capacity for “shared intentionality”– “…the ability and motivation to form shared goals and

intentions with others in collaborative activities, and the ability and motivation to share experience with others via joint attention, cooperative communication, and teaching” (p. 6)

• Uses comparative research to show how small-scale human groups are different from other primates and great apes, focusing mainly on chimpanzees

Subsistence• While other great apes forage in groups, not actually a

group activity– More likely done as protection from predation

• “Group” hunting of monkeys by chimpanzees– More likely a group of individuals trying to get the meat

first– Any “sharing” done of the meat by monkey hunting

chimpanzees is done to prevent conflict• Cost-benefit analysis

• Within small-scale human groups, cooperation and the sharing of food are expected

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pro6X_Kc5wA

Economy

• Chimps and other great apes trade in favors (food, sex, grooming, coalitional support), whereas humans also trade stuff

• “Ownership” does not exist in other great ape social groups– Physical possession or proximity the closest thing

(always tenuous)• “Human ownership… is a fundamentally cooperative

arrangement in which everyone agrees to respect others’ rights.” (p.11)

Child Care And Social Behavior

• Chimpanzees and the other great apes are cooperative to limited degree– When food comes into the picture, forget it– Chimpanzee mothers frequently thwarted their

offspring’s attempts to get food from them• When they actually shared with their offspring, the kid

got the short end of the stick (peel, husk, etc.)

• Humans are “cooperative breeders”– Cooperative breeding facilitates the development

of families and unique attachments

Family

Communication And Teaching• • “It comes so naturally to humans that we do not

think of it as cooperative behavior at all, but the free exchange of information in humans is premised on the cooperative assumption that a communicative act provides useful or relevant information not for the speaker but for the listener” (p. 15)

• Chimps and other great apes do not engage in, or understand, cooperative communication because of their competitive evolutionary history– Communication likely self-serving

• Communication establishes and maintains small-scale human groups through teaching

Politics• The social systems of the other great apes are built around a

dominance hierarchy and ever-present threat of retaliation. • “The main mechanism for keeping peace among great apes is that if

one individual harms another… the victim will quite often retaliate (within the constraints of any dominance relations at play).” (p. 18)

• Intergroup relations – not so good• Small-scale human groups have norms that keep dominant

individuals in check• “…powerful individuals often obtain and retain their power not by

dominating resources directly in the manner of other great apes, but by demonstrating both their ability to control resources and their cooperative propensities by distributing resources generously to others” (p. 19).

• Third-party enforcement important for group cohesion• Trade and intermarriage reduce intergroup conflict in humans

Chimpanzee Dominance Display

• http://videos.howstuffworks.com/animal-planet/27871-almost-human-male-dominance-in-chimps-video.htm

Norms And Institutions

• • “…the most distinctive feature of human social organization is its normative structure. Human beings do not just have statistical expectations about what others will do—which all apes have—they also have normative expectations about what others should do” (p. 19)

• “Policing” found in chimpanzees may actually be the dominant individual striving to keep dominance, but may be an evolutionary precursor to third-party enforcement

• Norms and institutions help foster group cohesion

Transmission Of Social Behavior/Social Learning

• While many great apes seem to exhibit cultural behavior, this can be more readily explained by observational learning, since direct teaching is not involved

• Humans are more actively involved in the process of social transmission

• When taught a task, chimps more concerned with the end result, whereas human children are more concerned with proper procedure

• “This normative dimension to cultural traditions serves to further guarantee their faithful transmission across generations.” (p. 29)

Adapted For Culture

• Research has found that when compared on test of cognitive ability, human infants perform comparably to the other great apes on things pertaining to the physical world, but exceed them in things pertaining to the social world

• The advanced theory of mind of H. sapiens is an important element of this– The ability to infer the mental state of others– Competitively oriented in other great apes, while

cooperatively oriented in humans

Adapted For Culture Cont’d• Human collaboration is facilitated by language, gestural

communication, and the ability to mentally view activities from multiple perspectives

• Cross-cultural research as found children develop similarly in there social-cognitive skills initially, with cultural and experiential differences coming later in development

• “Children must be equipped to participate during ontogeny in this huge groupthink process by species-unique cognitive skills for collaboration, communication, and cultural learning, which coevolved with human cultural organization during relatively recent evolutionary history. These basic skills are universal across all cultural settings, and indeed, in an important sense, make human culture possible in the first place.” (pp.38-39)

The Evolutionary Origins Of Culture

• Ecological pressures forced humans to become “obligate foragers”

• Humans then began a process of “self-domestication” by punishing/shunning overly aggressive individuals and/or by cooperative breeding

• Eventually, human groups began to develop norms and institutions that bound them together as they competed with other groups, and the most cohesive groups prospered

• White sclera of human eyes may be a physiological adaptation that facilitates cooperation

The Evolutionary Origins Of Culture Cont’d

• While culture is the result of biological evolution, it’s subsequent influence on human evolution cannot be overstated. Culture can be considered an evolutionary force in its own right (Richerson & Boyd,2005)

Some Related Research

• http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-hunter-gatherers-social-networks-evolution-cooperation.html

Examining The Miracle• The events in Alive (1974/2005) would not have been possible

without the human ability to develop culture with its norms, etc. via shared intentionality.

• Through shared intentionality, the group divided itself into sub-groups with differing tasks that were ultimately geared toward survival

• The circumstances the group encountered are loosely analogues to those that our ancestors are hypothesized to have faced early in human evolution, and so this instance can be utilized when examining the evolution of human cooperation and culture

• Within the culture the survivors created, the consumption of human flesh was viewed as acceptable under certain circumstances

Examining The Miracle Cont’d• As an aspect of cultural behavior, religion is

hypothesized to have evolved in part because it facilitated group cohesion (Rossano, 2010)– Saying the rosary nightly

• Through making the consumption of human flesh a form of communion, the group was “supernaturalizing social life” and increasing their cohesion (Rossano, 2010)

• Their common religious upbringing helped facilitate the groups cohesiveness, and ultimately contributed to their survival

Examining The Miracle Cont’d– Certainly their quarrels were never serious when compared to the

strong bond of their common purpose. Especially when they prayed together at night they felt an almost mystical solidarity, not only among themselves, but with God. They had called to Him in their need and now felt Him close at hand. Some had even come to see the avalanche as a miracle which had provided them with more food.

This union was not just with God but with the friends who had died and whose bodies they were eating to survive. Those souls had been called to heaven because their work on earth had been done, but all who were now living would quite happily have exchanged roles. Nicolich, before the avalanche, and Algorta, while suffocating beneath the snow, had both been prepared to die and bequeath their bodies to their friends. It was also, as Turcatti said to the three others in the conversation about Christ’s ordeal in the desert, that their condition on the mountain was so terrible that any other would be better- even death (pp. 193-194)

Questions For Me?

My Questions For You• What factors do you think ultimately

contributed to the survival of those in Alive?• Is there something other than shared

intentionality that you think makes us human? • Do you think Tomasello glosses over human

conflict?• Do you think Tomasello dismisses the idea of

culture in the other great apes too readily?• Do you agree with my interpretation of

Tomasello’s thesis?

References• Reid, P. P. (1974/2005). Alive. New York:

Harper Perennial• Richerson, P. J. & Boyd, R. (2005) Not by genes

alone: how culture transformed human evolution. London: The University Of Chicago Press

• Rossano, M. J. (2010). Supernatural selection. Oxford: Oxford University Press

• Tomasello, M. (2011). Human culture in evolutionary perspective. In M. Gelfand (Ed.) Advances in culture and psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Video References• BBCWorldwide. (2007, August 2). Hunter gatherers: tribe.

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pro6X_Kc5wA

• How Stuff Work. Almost human: male dominance in chimps. Retrieved from http://videos.howstuffworks.com/animal-planet/27871-almost-human-male-dominance-in-chimps-video.htm

• Physorg. (2012, January 25). New study of hunter-gatherers suggests social networks sparked evolution of cooperation [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-hunter-gatherers-social-networks-evolution-cooperation.html

Image References• Bonobo termite fishing. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?

q=animal+culture&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=923&tbm=isch&tbnid=bchZ4TD1N0YymM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture&docid=a6xcD1kol9_4VM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/BonoboFishing05.jpeg/220px-BonoboFishing05.jpeg&w=220&h=165&ei=C7ElT8TVCpDqtgeBwvyiCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=213&vpy=176&dur=309&hovh=132&hovw=176&tx=76&ty=62&sig=106676539912348877244&page=1&tbnh=125&tbnw=162&start=0&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

• Chimp nut cracking. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Chimps+cracking+nuts&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=923&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=EatvUa8KjVVdpM:&imgrefurl=http://mahale.main.jp/PAN/13_2/13(2)_02.html&docid=S3BzOs0rbBCYcM&imgurl=http://mahale.main.jp/PAN/13_2/13(2)_06.jpg&w=500&h=365&ei=1a8lT9z-LouCtgfkr5WiCw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=420&sig=106676539912348877244&page=1&tbnh=130&tbnw=162&start=0&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=67&ty=68

• Chimpanzee family. Retrieved from http://www.fond-ecran-image.com/en,Chimpanzees-190809-0041-1m-1024x768,galerie-membre,singe-chimpanze,chimpanzes-190809-0041-1m-1024x768jpg.php

• Human family. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?q=family&start=45&num=10&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=923&tbm=isch&tbnid=jEVp4tcGRBF3sM:&imgrefurl=http://www.graphicshunt.com/clipart/search/1/family.htm&docid=A8Ij1O-yeH622M&imgurl=http://images.paraorkut.com/img/clipart/images/f/family_cooking-872.gif&w=500&h=402&ei=4L0lT9auKsbEtweZ6MCgDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=459&sig=106676539912348877244&sqi=2&page=3&tbnh=160&tbnw=199&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:21,s:45&tx=51&ty=93