PSYC 391 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Imitative Learning, Food Processing, Orangutan
4 Oct 2018
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PSYC 391 CH2 Culture & Human Nature
What is human nature?
1. Humans are a specialized primat
2. Humans are uniquely co-evolved with culture
3. Humans are ultrasocial
Humans are primates
- Primates tend to have a high encephalization quotient (brain weight/ body weight)
- Sociality best explains bigh primate brains, especially large neocortex ratio
- Neocortex ratio: ratio of the volume of the neocortex (the outermost layer of the
brain that is concerned with higher functions, eg sensory perception, motor
control, and conscious thought) to the volume of the rest of the brain
a. Not much support for the notion that the cognitive skills required to
find ripe fruit drove the evolution of primate brains
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b. Fail to support that the challenges of obtaining hard-to-extract foods is
what selected for primate intelligence
c. Support for the notion that primates that lived in larger social groups
tended to have larger neocortex ratios
- Social brain hypothesis: the great cognitive demands inherent in
social living that led to the evolution of large primate brains
- human intelligence did not evolve primarily as a means to
solve ecological problems, but rather as a means of
surviving and reproducing in large and complex social
groups. → more cultural learning
Humans are uniquely co-evolved with culture
- Culture: information that is acquired from other members of one’s species, through
social learning, and is capable of affecting an individual’s behavior
■ Do non-humans primates demonstrate culture?
- Some monkeys demonstrate social (cultural) learning
1. Food processing traditions in
Japanese Macaques
- Monkeys provisioned on
beach
- Imo invents potato washing
- Behavior spread along kin
lines (other Japanese
macaques)
- Behavior re-appears
spontaneously
2. Chimpanzee behavior varies among populations
- Investigators at 6 field sites compared data
- Using same behavioral coding, behaviors differ
- NOT explained by environmental/ genetic differences
- BUT, no data on transmission mechanisms
- Orangutan culture
- 6 wild populations across Borneo & Sumatra
- 24 “putative cultural variants”
- Specialized feeding techniques, instrumentally modified materials,
instrumental object use, social signals
- Distance between sites predicts trait different
Document Summary
What is human nature: humans are a specialized primat, humans are uniquely co-evolved with culture, humans are ultrasocial. Primates tend to have a high encephalization quotient (brain weight/ body weight) Sociality best explains bigh primate brains, especially large neocortex ratio. 2: fail to support that the challenges of obtaining hard-to-extract foods is what selected for primate intelligence, support for the notion that primates that lived in larger social groups tended to have larger neocortex ratios. Social brain hypothesis: the great cognitive demands inherent in social living that led to the evolution of large primate brains. Human intelligence did not evolve primarily as a means to solve ecological problems, but rather as a means of surviving and reproducing in large and complex social groups. Culture: information that is acquired from other members of one"s species, through social learning, and is capable of affecting an individual"s behavior. Some monkeys demonstrate social (cultural) learning: food processing traditions in.
