scholarly journals Cooperation and human cognition: the Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1480) ◽  
pp. 639-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrike Moll ◽  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
Social Competition ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
The Social

Nicholas Humphrey's social intelligence hypothesis proposed that the major engine of primate cognitive evolution was social competition. Lev Vygotsky also emphasized the social dimension of intelligence, but he focused on human primates and cultural things such as collaboration, communication and teaching. A reasonable proposal is that primate cognition in general was driven mainly by social competition, but beyond that the unique aspects of human cognition were driven by, or even constituted by, social cooperation. In the present paper, we provide evidence for this Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis by comparing the social-cognitive skills of great apes with those of young human children in several domains of activity involving cooperation and communication with others. We argue, finally, that regular participation in cooperative, cultural interactions during ontogeny leads children to construct uniquely powerful forms of perspectival cognitive representation.

scholarly journals The evolution of intelligence in mammalian carnivores

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 20160108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kay E. Holekamp ◽  
Sarah Benson-Amram
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Social ◽  
Specific Cognitive Abilities

Although intelligence should theoretically evolve to help animals solve specific types of problems posed by the environment, it is unclear which environmental challenges favour enhanced cognition, or how general intelligence evolves along with domain-specific cognitive abilities. The social intelligence hypothesis posits that big brains and great intelligence have evolved to cope with the labile behaviour of group mates. We have exploited the remarkable convergence in social complexity between cercopithecine primates and spotted hyaenas to test predictions of the social intelligence hypothesis in regard to both cognition and brain size. Behavioural data indicate that there has been considerable convergence between primates and hyaenas with respect to their social cognitive abilities. Moreover, compared with other hyaena species, spotted hyaenas have larger brains and expanded frontal cortex, as predicted by the social intelligence hypothesis. However, broader comparative study suggests that domain-general intelligence in carnivores probably did not evolve in response to selection pressures imposed specifically in the social domain. The cognitive buffer hypothesis, which suggests that general intelligence evolves to help animals cope with novel or changing environments, appears to offer a more robust explanation for general intelligence in carnivores than any hypothesis invoking selection pressures imposed strictly by sociality or foraging demands.

Shared intentionality shapes humans' technical know-how

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrike Moll ◽  
Ryan Nichols ◽  
Ellyn Pueschel
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Philosophical Psychology ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
Know How ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Technical Rationality

Abstract Osiurak and Reynaud argue that cumulative technological culture is made possible by a “non-social cognitive structure” (sect. 1, para. 1) and they offer an account that aims “to escape from the social dimension” (sect. 1, para. 2) of human cognition. We challenge their position by arguing that human technical rationality is unintelligible outside of our species' uniquely social form of life, which is defined by shared intentionality (Kern & Moll 2017, Philosophical Psychology30(3):319–37; Tomasello 2019a, Becoming human: A theory of ontogeny. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press).

Individual performance in socio-cognitive tasks predicts social behaviour in carrion crows

Behaviour ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 152 (5) ◽  
pp. 615-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia A.F. Wascher
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Individual Performance ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Performance

The social intelligence hypothesis links the evolution of exceptional cognitive skills to the requirements of complex social systems. Empirical evidence of a connection between cognitive skills and social behaviour on an individual level is lacking. I investigated how cognitive performance in carrion crows correlates with social behaviour. Social behaviour was observed and crows were tested in four tasks previously published elsewhere: qualitative exchange, quantity preference, inequity aversion, heterospecific recognition. I describe correlations between an individuals’ involvement in affiliative and aggressive encounters and performance during these different cognitive tasks. For example, individuals performing better in the qualitative exchange task received more approaches and affiliative interactions. There was a correlation between birds choosing higher quantities during testing and their propensity to initiate aggressive and affiliative interactions with others. Overall these results show a link between social behaviour and individual performance in cognitive tasks.

scholarly journals Social intelligence, human intelligence and niche construction

2007 ◽  
Vol 362 (1480) ◽  
pp. 719-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Sterelny
Keyword(s):  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Ecological Environment ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Foraging Mode ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
Hominin Evolution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ecological Complexity ◽  
Intelligence Models

This paper is about the evolution of hominin intelligence. I agree with defenders of the social intelligence hypothesis in thinking that externalist models of hominin intelligence are not plausible: such models cannot explain the unique cognition and cooperation explosion in our lineage, for changes in the external environment (e.g. increasing environmental unpredictability) affect many lineages. Both the social intelligence hypothesis and the social intelligence–ecological complexity hybrid I outline here are niche construction models. Hominin evolution is hominin response to selective environments that earlier hominins have made. In contrast to social intelligence models, I argue that hominins have both created and responded to a unique foraging mode; a mode that is both social in itself and which has further effects on hominin social environments. In contrast to some social intelligence models, on this view, hominin encounters with their ecological environments continue to have profound selective effects. However, though the ecological environment selects, it does not select on its own. Accidents and their consequences, differential success and failure, result from the combination of the ecological environment an agent faces and the social features that enhance some opportunities and suppress others and that exacerbate some dangers and lessen others. Individuals do not face the ecological filters on their environment alone, but with others, and with the technology, information and misinformation that their social world provides.

scholarly journals Cooperation and the evolution of intelligence

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1740) ◽  
pp. 3027-3034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke McNally ◽  
Sam P. Brown ◽  
Andrew L. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Artificial Neural Network Model ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Selection For

The high levels of intelligence seen in humans, other primates, certain cetaceans and birds remain a major puzzle for evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. It has long been held that social interactions provide the selection pressures necessary for the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities (the ‘social intelligence hypothesis’), and in recent years decision-making in the context of cooperative social interactions has been conjectured to be of particular importance. Here we use an artificial neural network model to show that selection for efficient decision-making in cooperative dilemmas can give rise to selection pressures for greater cognitive abilities, and that intelligent strategies can themselves select for greater intelligence, leading to a Machiavellian arms race. Our results provide mechanistic support for the social intelligence hypothesis, highlight the potential importance of cooperative behaviour in the evolution of intelligence and may help us to explain the distribution of cooperation with intelligence across taxa.

scholarly journals Social Cognition through the Lens of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Arioli ◽  
Chiara Crespi ◽  
Nicola Canessa
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Deficits ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Acquired Brain Injury ◽  
Clinical Neuroscience ◽  
Pathological Conditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Cognitive Deficits

Social cognition refers to a set of processes, ranging from perception to decision-making, underlying the ability to decode others’ intentions and behaviors to plan actions fitting with social and moral, besides individual and economic considerations. Its centrality in everyday life reflects the neural complexity of social processing and the ubiquity of social cognitive deficits in different pathological conditions. Social cognitive processes can be clustered in three domains associated with (a) perceptual processing of social information such as faces and emotional expressions (social perception), (b) grasping others’ cognitive or affective states (social understanding), and (c) planning behaviors taking into consideration others’, in addition to one’s own, goals (social decision-making). We review these domains from the lens of cognitive neuroscience, i.e., in terms of the brain areas mediating the role of such processes in the ability to make sense of others’ behavior and plan socially appropriate actions. The increasing evidence on the “social brain” obtained from healthy young individuals nowadays constitutes the baseline for detecting changes in social cognitive skills associated with physiological aging or pathological conditions. In the latter case, impairments in one or more of the abovementioned domains represent a prominent concern, or even a core facet, of neurological (e.g., acquired brain injury or neurodegenerative diseases), psychiatric (e.g., schizophrenia), and developmental (e.g., autism) disorders. To pave the way for the other papers of this issue, addressing the social cognitive deficits associated with severe acquired brain injury, we will briefly discuss the available evidence on the status of social cognition in normal aging and its breakdown in neurodegenerative disorders. Although the assessment and treatment of such impairments is a relatively novel sector in neurorehabilitation, the evidence summarized here strongly suggests that the development of remediation procedures for social cognitive skills will represent a future field of translational research in clinical neuroscience.

scholarly journals An intraspecific appraisal of the social intelligence hypothesis

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1756) ◽  
pp. 20170288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Ashton ◽  
Alex Thornton ◽  
Amanda R. Ridley
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
Developmental Factors ◽  
Cognitive Research ◽  
The Social

The prevailing hypotheses for the evolution of cognition focus on either the demands associated with group living (the social intelligence hypothesis (SIH)) or ecological challenges such as finding food. Comparative studies testing these hypotheses have generated highly conflicting results; consequently, our understanding of the drivers of cognitive evolution remains limited. To understand how selection shapes cognition, research must incorporate an intraspecific approach, focusing on the causes and consequences of individual variation in cognition. Here, we review the findings of recent intraspecific cognitive research to investigate the predictions of the SIH. Extensive evidence from our own research on Australian magpies ( Cracticus tibicen dorsalis ), and a number of other taxa, suggests that individuals in larger social groups exhibit elevated cognitive performance and, in some cases, elevated reproductive fitness. Not only do these findings demonstrate how the social environment has the potential to shape cognitive evolution, but crucially, they demonstrate the importance of considering both genetic and developmental factors when attempting to explain the causes of cognitive variation. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Causes and consequences of individual differences in cognitive abilities’.

The Social Brain

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Susan D. Healy
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Machiavellian Intelligence

The first discussion of a relationship between sociality and intelligence came in the middle of the twentieth century, especially by Humphrey who suggested that living socially demanded intellectual abilities above and beyond those required by an animal’s ecology. This led to the Social Intelligence Hypothesis, and then the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis, both proposing that sociality was the main driver of the superior intellect of primates, especially humans. Two key challenges for this hypothesis are that sociality is difficult to quantify and cognition is not well tested by problem solving. More importantly, as data from more species have been examined, the analyses increasingly fail to show that sociality explains variation in brain size, even in primates. I conclude that appealing as this hypothesis is, it does not do a very compelling job of explaining variation in brain size.

Social Intelligence and Altruism

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-185
Author(s):  
Daeyeol Lee
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Social Intelligence Hypothesis ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Social Decision Making

According to the social intelligence hypothesis, the unusual enlargement of primate brains, including the human brain, was driven by the complexity of social decision-making primates face in their societies. Social decision-making is fundamentally more complex due to the recursive nature of social reasoning. This chapter begins with the review of game theory and illustrates how game theory has transformed neuroscience research on social decision-making. Some of the topics covered include the supposed death of game theory, altruism and its dark side, cooperation, the theory of the mind, the prisoner’s dilemma, the recursive mind, and the social brain.

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