Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-669899f699-swprf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T20:17:32.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Social behaviour in humans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Ruth Mace
Edited by
Tamás Székely ,
Allen J. Moore  and
Jan Komdeur
Ruth Mace
Affiliation:
University College London, UK
Tamás Székely
Affiliation:
University of Bath
Allen J. Moore
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Jan Komdeur
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Overview

The behavioural ecological approach, and in some cases a cultural evolutionary approach, has enabled us to address a number of key questions in the evolution of human social behaviour. What were our ancestral families like, did we breed cooperatively, and how has that contributed to our life-history evolution? Why is there diversity in human cultural norms between societies, especially in marriage and kinship systems? What evolutionary mechanisms underpin the unique abilities of humans to coordinate actions between large numbers of only distantly related individuals – individual natural selection or group-level cultural selection? This is far from an exhaustive list of topics in a huge field, but these have been selected because they all illustrate examples of human behaviours that have at least some uniquely human characteristics.

Human social systems are unique, no doubt due to our cognitive capacity. Our life history suggests a long period of learning and slow growth (childhood), which is associated with the cognitive development of our large brains, followed by a period of intense levels of parental investment in numerous offspring who are fed through technologically advanced methods which children generally cannot entirely master until they are at least teenagers. Husbands, grandmothers and other members of the social group can all help defray the costs of rearing multiple costly offspring; although there is still some disagreement about which individuals are most important; it probably depends on ecology.

Type
Chapter
Information
Social Behaviour
Genes, Ecology and Evolution
 , pp. 395 - 409
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (2005) The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cronk, L., Chagnon, N. & Irons, W., eds. (2000) Adaptation and Human Behavior: an Anthropological Perspective. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. & Barrett, L., eds. (2006) The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, K. & Hurtado, A. M. (1996) Ache Life History: the Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Laland, K. & Brown, G. (2002) Sense and Nonsense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mace, R., Holden, C. J. & Shennan, S., eds. (2005) The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: a Phylogenetic Approach. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Allal, N., Sear, R., Prentice, A. M. & Mace, R. (2004) An evolutionary model of stature, age at first birth and reproductive success in Gambian women. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 271, 465–470.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bateson, M., Nettle, D. & Roberts, G. (2006) Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biology Letters, 2, 412–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blurton Jones, N. G., Marlowe, F., Hawkes, K. & O'Connell, J. F. (2000) Paternal investment and hunter–gatherer divorce rates. In: Adaptation and Human Behaviour: an Anthropological Perspective, ed. Cronk, L., Chagnon, N. & Irons, W.. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, pp. 69–89.Google Scholar
Bowles, S. (2006) Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism. Science, 314, 1569–1572.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyd, R. & Richerson, P. J. (1985) Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R., Gintis, H., Bowles, S. & Richerson, P. J. (2003) The evolution of altruistic punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 100, 3531–3535.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cant, M. A. & Johnstone, R. A. (2008) Reproductive conflict and the separation of reproductive generations in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 105, 5332–5336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crook, J. H. & Crook, S. J. (1988) Tibetan polyandry: problems of adaptation and fitness. In: Human Reproductive Behaviour: a Darwinian Perspective, ed. L. Betzig, M. Borgerhoff Mulder & P. Turke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 97–114.Google Scholar
Devlin, B., Daniels, M. & Roeder, K. (1997) The heritability of IQ. Nature, 388, 468–471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fessler, D. M. T. & Haley, K. J. (2003) The strategy of affect: emotions in human co-operation. In: Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Co-operation, ed. Hammerstein, P.. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 7–36.Google Scholar
Fortunato, L., Holden, C. & Mace, R. (2006) From bridewealth to dowry? A Bayesian estimation of ancestral states of marriage transfers in Indo-European groups. Human Nature, 17, 355–376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Galdikas, B. M. F. & Wood, J. W. (1990) Birth spacing patterns in humans and apes. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 83, 185–191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gaulin, S. J. C. & Boster, J. S. (1990) Dowry as female competition. American Anthropologist, 92, 994–1005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goody, J. (1976) Production and Reproduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gurven, M. (2004) Economic games among the Amazonian Tsimane: exploring the roles of market access, costs of giving, and cooperation on pro-social game behavior. Experimental Economics, 7, 5–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gurven, M. & Kaplan, H. (2006) Determinants of time allocation across the lifespan: a theoretical model and an application to the Machiguenga and Piro of Peru. Human Nature, 17, 1–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guzman, R. A., Rodriguez-Sickert, C. & Rowthorn, R. (2007) When in Rome, do as the Romans do: the coevolution of altruistic punishment, conformist learning, and cooperation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 112–117.Google Scholar
Haley, K. J. & Fessler, D. M. T. (2005) Nobody's watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26, 245–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartung, J. (1982) Polygyny and the inheritance of wealth. Current Anthropology, 23, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkes, K., O'Connell, J. F. & Jones, N. G. B. (1997) Hadza women's time allocation, offspring provisioning and the evolution of long postmenopausal life spans. Current Anthropology, 38, 551–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkes, K., O'Connell, J. F., Jones, N. G. B., Alvarez, H. & Charnov, E. L. (1998) Grandmothering, menopause and the evolution of human life histories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 95, 1336–1339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawkes, K., O'Connell, J. F., & Blurton-Jones, N. G. (2001) Hadza meat sharing. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22, 113–142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S.et al. (2001) In search of Homo economicus: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. American Economic Review, 91, 73–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S.et al. (2005) ‘Economic man’ in cross-cultural perspective: behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 795–855.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrmann, B., Thoni, C. & Gächter, S. (2008) Antisocial punishment across societies. Science, 319, 1362–1367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, K. & Hurtado, A. M. (1991) The evolution of premature reproductive senescence and menopause in human females: an evaluation of the ‘grandmother hypothesis’. Human Nature, 2, 313–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, K. & Hurtado, A. M. (1996) Ache Life History: the Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People. New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hill, K. & Kaplan, H. (1993) On why male foragers hunt and share food. Current Anthropology, 34, 701–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, K., Kaplan, H., Hawkes, K. & Hurtado, A. M. (1987) Foraging decisions among Ache hunter-gatherers: new data and implications for optimal foraging models. Ethology and Sociobiology, 8, 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holden, C. J. & Mace, R. (2003) Spread of cattle led to the loss of matrilineal descent in Africa: a coevolutionary analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 270, 2425–2433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunt, G. R. & Gray, R. D. (2003) Diversification and cumulative evolution in New Caledonian crow tool manufacture. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 270, 867–874.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnstone, R. A. & Cant, M. A. (2008) Sex differences in dispersal and the evolution of helping and harming. American Naturalist, 172, 318–330.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, H. & Hill, K. (1985) Food sharing among Ache foragers: tests of explanatory hypotheses. Current Anthropology, 26, 223–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, H. & Lancaster, , J. (2003) An evolutionary and ecological analysis of human fertility, mating patterns and parental investment. In: Offspring: Human Fertility Behavior in Biodemographic Perspective, ed. Wachter, K. W. & Bulatao, R. A.. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, pp. 170–223.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H. S. & Robson, A. J. (2002) The emergence of humans: the coevolution of intelligence and longevity with intergenerational transfers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 99, 10221–10226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kelly, R. L. (1995) The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter–Gatherer Lifeways. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Laland, K. & Brown, G. (2002) Sense and Nonsense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, R. D. (2003) Rethinking the evolutionary theory of aging: transfers, not births, shape social species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 100, 9637–9642.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, R. D. & Kramer, K. L. (2002) Children's economic roles in the Maya family life cycle: Cain, Caldwell, and Chayanov revisited. Population and Development Review, 28, 475–499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonetti, D. L., Nath, D. C., Hemam, N. S. & Neill, D. B. (2005) Kinship organisation and the impact of grandmothers on reproductive success among matrilineal Khasi and patrilineal Bengali of northeast India. In: Grandmotherhood: the Evolutionary Significance of the Second Half of Female Life, ed. Voland, E., Chasiotis, A. & Schiefenhovel, W.. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, pp. 194–214.Google Scholar
Mace, R. (1996) Biased parental investment and reproductive success in Gabbra pastoralists. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 38, 75–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mace, R. (2007) The evolutionary ecology of human family size. In: The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, ed. Dunbar, R. I. M. and Barrett, L.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 383–396.Google Scholar
Mace, R. & Pagel, M. (1994) The comparative method in anthropology. Current Anthropology, 35, 549–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mace, R. & Sear, R. (2005) Are humans co-operative breeders? In: Grandmotherhood: the Evolutionary Significance of the Second Half of Female Life, ed. Voland, E., Chasiotis, A. & Schiefenhovel, W.. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 143–159.Google Scholar
Mace, R., Holden, C. J. & Shennan, S., eds. (2005) The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: a Phylogenetic Approach. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Marlowe, F. (2000) Paternal investment and the human mating system. Behavioural Processes, 51, 45–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marlowe, F. W. (2003) A critical period for provisioning by Hadza men – implications for pair bonding. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24, 217–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marlowe, F. W. (2004) Marital residence among foragers. Current Anthropology, 45, 277–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marlowe, F. W. (2005) Hunter–gatherers and human evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology, 14, 54–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marlowe, F. W. & Berbesque, J. C. (2008) More ‘altruistic’ punishment in larger societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 275, 587–590.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murdock, G. P. (1967) Ethnographic Atlas. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Nowak, M. A. & Sigmund, K. (2005) Evolution of indirect reciprocity. Nature, 437, 1291–1298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pagel, M. 1994. Detecting correlated evolution on phylogenies: a general method for the comparative analysis of discrete characters. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 255, 37–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richerson, P. J. & Boyd, R. (1999) Complex societies: the evolutionary origins of a crude superorganism. Human Nature, 10, 253–289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sear, R. & Mace, R. (2008) Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sear, R., Mace, R. & McGregor, I. A. (2000) Maternal grandmothers improve the nutritional status and survival of children in rural Gambia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 267, 1641–1647.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sear, R., Steele, F., McGregor, I. A. & Mace, R. (2002) The effects of kin on child mortality in rural Gambia. Demography, 39, 43–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sear, R., Mace, R. & McGregor, I. A. (2003) A life-history approach to fertility rates in rural Gambia: evidence for trade-offs or phenotypic correlations? In: The Biodemography of Human Reproduction and Fertility, ed. Rodgers, J. L. & Kohler, H. P.. Boston, MA: Kluwer, pp. 135–160.Google Scholar
Shanley, D. P. & Kirkwood, T. B. L. (2001) Evolution of the human menopause. BioEssays, 23, 282–287.3.0.CO;2-9>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shanley, D. P., Sear, R., Mace, R. & Kirkwood, T. B. L. (2007) Testing evolutionary theories of menopause. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 274, 2943–2949.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weir, A. A. S. & Kacelnik, A. (2006) A New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) creatively re-designs tools by bending or unbending aluminium strips. Animal Cognition, 9, 317–334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, D. S. & Sober, E. (1994) Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17, 585–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×