PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Homophily, Mental Model, Functional Response

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Our social environments play a tremendous role in how we develop. Much of how we learn to exist is through observing and imitating other people. Anyone in our environment can be a model. The social brain hypothesis was put fourth to explain the evolution of intelligence. The reason that humans, dolphins and monkeys have developed so large and metabolically demanding brains is to meet the cognitive demands of social living. Social animals aren"t just in a struggle with their environment to survive, they also compete for interpersonal attention and resources. In a social species, the individuals with the greatest ability to outsmart their competitors will be most likely to survive and mate. The reason for evolutionary growth of the brain is to provide an advantage to social creatures over others of their species. Young children learn to appropriate and inappropriate behaviour when caregivers teach them. But the way that they teach them is very important.