Search Results

The hypothesis that the complexity of social life selects for large brains is currently very prominent. This functional hypothesis has been tested mainly through experiments which aim to identify the cognitive processes or mechanisms that may underlie social behavior. Such research is inherently challenging because it is extremely difficult to design experiments that conclusively allow the exclusion of simple cognitive processes as an explanation for successful behavior. This chapter argues that cognitive scientists should not focus on processes alone but rather quantitatively test what animals can do with their brain: how fast, how precise, how much they can learn. Many differences between species concerning cognitive tasks in the social domain are quantitative in nature (e.g., the number of group members, past behavior that an individual has to recognize, the number of opportunities for social learning or cooperation that arise per time unit, etc.). Tests on how such quantitative differences between species translate into quantitative cognitive performances should be conducted in many species to provide a comparative approach, where predictions about relative performance can be made based on detailed knowledge of each study species’ ecology. Comparative approaches are methodologically challenging but can be tackled through large-scale cooperation.

This chapter discusses the background and evidence for the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis. The essence of the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis is that intelligence evolved in social circumstances. The individuals who are favoured are the ones who are able to use and exploit others in their social group, without causing disruption and potential group fission liable to result in naked aggression. Their manipulations might as easily involve co-operation as conflict, sharing as hoarding — but in each case the end is exploitative and selfish. Consistent with the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, social species of primate display both complexity of social manipulation and considerable knowledge of social information. This social complexity needs to be fully appreciated in order to understand the strength of the case for Machiavellian intelligence.

The question of whether nonhuman animals read minds—that is, whether they are able to attribute mental states, such as intentions, beliefs, and perceptual experiences, to others by observing their behaviors within environmental contexts—has been the subject of considerable debate for more than three decades now. On one side are those who claim that some animals are mindreaders and on the other side are those who reject such a theory. This chapter explains some of the reasons why the question of mindreading in nonhuman primates is important to cognitive science and philosophy. Animal mindreading is relevant, for example to the “Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis” or “social brain hypothesis,” an influential hypothesis about the evolution of nonhuman animal intelligence. The chapter also summarizes the history of the debate over this issue, its current state of stalemate, and what must be done to advance it.

This chapter argues for two crucial ideas. First, over deep history and at different times and places, humans have experienced very different physical, biological, economic and social environments. Even as foragers, our ancestors experienced different worlds, but over the last 10,000 years change has become more frequent and intense. As a consequence, human adaptive response to the many environments with which we have coped cannot solely or primarily be based on innate, genetically programmed capacities. Social learning is the engine of human adaptability. Second, while defenders of the social intelligence hypothesis are right to emphasise the cognitive challenges posed by human social environments, they have typically over-rated the importance of deception and manipulation, and under-rated the cognitive challenge of coordination. Humans evolved as technically skilled, ecologically informed, cooperative foragers, and that was a cognitively demanding lifeway, especially given the dynamism of human environments.