scholarly journals When Individuals Do Not Stop at the Skin

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Three Phases

This chapter examines contemporary hunter-gatherer societies in Africa and elsewhere in light of the social brain and the distributed mind hypotheses. One question asked is whether African hunter-gatherers offer the best model for societies at the dawn of symbolic culture, or whether societies elsewhere offer better models. The chapter argues for the former. Theoretical concepts touched on include sharing and exchange, universal kin classification, and the relation between group size and social networks. The chapter offers reinterpretations of classic anthropological notions such as Wissler's age-area hypothesis, Durkheim's collective consciousness and Lévi-Strauss's elementary structures of kinship. Finally, the chapter outlines a theory of the co-evolution of language and kinship through three phases (signifying, syntactic and symbolic) and the subsequent breakdown of the principles of the symbolic phase across much of the globe in Neolithic times.

Teaching and Learning Subsistence Skills: Did Premodern Hominins Use Language to Do It?

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Botha
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Cultures ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour

Two recent studies—the first by MacDonald & Roebroeks (2013), the second by Tallerman (2013)—draw inferences about the social use of language by premodern hominins from data about the linguistic behaviour of modern hunter-gatherers and other modern people with traditional cultures. Such inferences cannot be sound, though, unless they meet a particular requirement: they need appropriate warrants. These have to serve as conceptual bridges that span the ontological gap between the behaviours and capacities of modern humans and those of the premodern hominins concerned. Interestingly, both MacDonald & Roebroeks and Tallerman make a serious attempt to support their respective inferences with the aid of such conceptual bridges. The present article inquires whether these bridges are strong enough to serve this purpose, and argues that both bridges have components that are harmful to their solidity. In the process of arguing this, the article pursues the question of the conditions under which uniformitarian assumptions can be used as components of the substructure of the conceptual bridges needed for underpinning inferences about the use of language in the teaching and learning of subsistence skills by premodern hominins. More generally, the article elucidates an important limitation of the ethnographic record as a putative window on the evolution of language.

scholarly journals Assessing sources of error in comparative analyses of primate behavior: Intraspecific variation in group size and the social brain hypothesis

2016 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 126-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron A. Sandel ◽  
Jordan A. Miller ◽  
John C. Mitani ◽  
Charles L. Nunn ◽  
Samantha K. Patterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Group Size ◽  
Intraspecific Variation ◽  
Primate Behavior ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Comparative Analyses ◽  
Sources Of Error ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Processing power limits social group size: computational evidence for the cognitive costs of sociality

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1765) ◽  
pp. 20131151 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Dávid-Barrett ◽  
R. I. M. Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Group Size ◽  
Communication Complexity ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Coordination Problem ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Processing Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power Limits ◽  
The Cost

Sociality is primarily a coordination problem. However, the social (or communication) complexity hypothesis suggests that the kinds of information that can be acquired and processed may limit the size and/or complexity of social groups that a species can maintain. We use an agent-based model to test the hypothesis that the complexity of information processed influences the computational demands involved. We show that successive increases in the kinds of information processed allow organisms to break through the glass ceilings that otherwise limit the size of social groups: larger groups can only be achieved at the cost of more sophisticated kinds of information processing that are disadvantageous when optimal group size is small. These results simultaneously support both the social brain and the social complexity hypotheses.

scholarly journals Religion, the social brain and the mystical stance

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-62
Author(s):  
RIM Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Problem Analysis ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
World Religions ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Utopian Communities ◽  
Evolution Of Religion ◽  
Two Stages

This article explores the implications of the social brain and the endorphin-based bonding mechanism that underpins it for the evolution of religion. I argue that religion evolved as one of the behavioural mechanisms designed to facilitate community bonding when humans first evolved the larger social groups of ~150 that now characterise our species. This is not a matter of facilitating cooperation, but of engineering social cohesion – a very different problem. Analysis of the size of C19th utopian communities suggests that a religious basis both allowed larger groups to form and greatly enhanced their longevity. I suggest that religion evolved in two stages: an early immersive form with no formal structure based on trance-dancing (a form still evident in the rituals and practices of many hunter-gatherers) and a later form which had more formal structures and gave rise to our modern doctrinal religions. I argue that the modern doctrinal religions did not replace ancestral immersive religions but rather that the doctrinal component was overlaid on the ancient immersive form, thereby giving rise to the mystical stance that underlies all world religions. I suggest that it is this mystical stance that causes the constant upwelling of cults and sects within world religions.

Cliques, Coalitions, Comrades and Colleagues: Sources of Cohesion in Groups

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Arrow
Keyword(s):  
Group Size ◽  
Marginal Cost ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Emotional Bonds ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interpersonal Ties

Cohesion may be based primarily on interpersonal ties or rely instead on the connection between member and group, while groups may cohere temporarily based on the immediate alignment of interests among members or may be tied together more permanently by socio-emotional bonds. Together, these characteristics define four prototypical group types. Cliques and coalitions are based primarily on dyadic ties. Groups of comrades or colleagues rely instead on the connection of members to the group for cohesion, which reduces the marginal cost of increasing group size. The strong glue of socio-emotional cohesion binds cliques and comrades, while coalitions and groups of colleagues are often based on weaker forms of cohesion. The mix of strong and weak adhesives and the greater scalability offered by the member-group bond provide the building blocks for assembling very large societies without overtaxing the social brain.

The Social Brain and the Distributed Mind

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Dunbar ◽  
Clive Gamble ◽  
John Gowlett
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Distributed System ◽  
Distributed Cognition ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Language Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Human Brains ◽  
Chimpanzee Lineage

Human nature is the product of a long history that has brought us, over the course of some 6–8 million years, from our common ancestor with the chimpanzee lineage to modern humans. The aim of this particular volume has been to bring together two powerful approaches that deal, respectively, with explanations of the evolution of human brains and understandings of cognition as a distributed system, in order to illuminate the changes that took place during the later stages of human evolution. It aims to compare inter-disciplinary perspectives on these key issues across a range of disciplines. A particular focus is provided by consideration of the role that material culture plays as a scaffold for distributed cognition, and how almost 3 million years of artefact and tool use and manufacture provide the data for tracing key changes in areas such as language, technology, kinship, music, and social networks.

scholarly journals Searching and sharing of information in social networks during the different stages of a trip

2018 ◽  
pp. 185-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assumpció Huertas ◽  
Estela Marine-Roig
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Share Information ◽  
Three Phases

There are three phases in the use of online social media by tourists: before, during and after the trip. The aim of this study is to determine what social network users use to find information before and during the trip, the type of information they search, and where they share information. The study also identifies the relationship this has with the trustworthiness social networks provide them, especially distinguishing the social networks managed by the destination organizations. Therefore, we conduct a survey of 800 tourists who are social network users. Results show that social networks are not a major source of information before or during the trip but are very important for sharing contents after the experience, and that the most searched information concerns the main attractions of the destination. Moreover, there is a relationship between the use of social media and their perceived trustworthiness. In this case, for those who use social networks managed by destinations, these give them greater confidence.

scholarly journals Do online social media cut through the constraints that limit the size of offline social networks?

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 150292 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. I. M. Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Characteristic Size ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
Regional Population ◽  
Number Of Individuals

The social brain hypothesis has suggested that natural social network sizes may have a characteristic size in humans. This is determined in part by cognitive constraints and in part by the time costs of servicing relationships. Online social networking offers the potential to break through the glass ceiling imposed by at least the second of these, potentially enabling us to maintain much larger social networks. This is tested using two separate UK surveys, each randomly stratified by age, gender and regional population size. The data show that the size and range of online egocentric social networks, indexed as the number of Facebook friends, is similar to that of offline face-to-face networks. For one sample, respondents also specified the number of individuals in the inner layers of their network (formally identified as support clique and sympathy group), and these were also similar in size to those observed in offline networks. This suggests that, as originally proposed by the social brain hypothesis, there is a cognitive constraint on the size of social networks that even the communication advantages of online media are unable to overcome. In practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed to casual) relationships require at least occasional face-to-face interaction to maintain them.

Building blocks of language

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Jones ◽  
Juri Van den Heever
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Competency ◽  
Evolutionary Emergence ◽  
Selection Of

Articulate language is a form of communication unique to humans. Over time, a spectrum of researchers has proposed various frameworks attempting to explain the evolutionary acquisition of this distinctive human attribute, some deploring the apparent lack of direct evidence elucidating the phenomenon, whilst others have pointed to the contributions of palaeoanthropology, the social brain hypothesis and the fact that even amongst contemporary humans, social group sizes reflect brain size. Theologians have traditionally (largely) ignored evolutionary insights as an explanatory paradigm for the origin of humankind. However, an increasing number are, of late, contributing to a worldview of humanity which accommodates both the epistemological realities of evolutionary biology as well as insights from theology. This includes reviewing and assessing the origins of articulate language and the physiological attributes necessary for its development. It is in this sense that the evolution of language is relevant from a theological perspective. The association between mental capacity and articulate language, already noted by Darwin, is relevant in explaining the larger group sizes found amongst humans, as is the incipient role played by the evolution of laughter in triggering the neuroendocrine system promoting bonding, to the eventual development of articulate language. Our aim is to review a selection of contemporary perspectives on the evolution of language, amongst others, reasons for the ease with which young children acquire language competency, and whether we may be hardwired for language from birth. Further reading is suggested in the footnotes.Contribution: This article is part of a special collection reflecting on the evolutionary building blocks of our past, present and future. It is based on historical thought and contemporary research with regards to the evolutionary emergence of language. It fits well with the intersectional and trans-disciplinary nature of this collection and journal.

The Social Brain Hypothesis and Human Evolution

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin I. M. Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Group Size ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Behavioral Complexity ◽  
Cognitive Component ◽  
Hominin Evolution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Primate Sociality

Primate societies are unusually complex compared to those of other animals, and the need to manage such complexity is the main explanation for the fact that primates have unusually large brains. Primate sociality is based on bonded relationships that underpin coalitions, which in turn are designed to buffer individuals against the social stresses of living in large, stable groups. This is reflected in a correlation between social group size and neocortex size in primates (but not other species of animals), commonly known as the social brain hypothesis, although this relationship itself is the outcome of an underlying relationship between brain size and behavioral complexity. The relationship between brain size and group size is mediated, in humans at least, by mentalizing skills. Neuropsychologically, these are all associated with the size of units within the theory of mind network (linking prefrontal cortex and temporal lobe units). In addition, primate sociality involves a dual-process mechanism whereby the endorphin system provides a psychopharmacological platform off which the cognitive component is then built. This article considers the implications of these findings for the evolution of human cognition over the course of hominin evolution.

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