The ultra‐social animal
Open accessAbstract
In evolutionary perspective, what is most remarkable about human sociality is its many and diverse forms of cooperation. Here, I provide an overview of some recent research, mostly from our laboratory, comparing human children with their nearest living relatives, the great apes, in various tests of collaboration, prosocial behavior, conformity, and group‐mindedness (e.g., following and enforcing social norms). This is done in the context of a hypothetical evolutionary scenario comprising two ordered steps: a first step in which early humans began collaborating with others in unique ways in their everyday foraging and a second step in which modern humans began forming cultural groups. Humans' unique forms of sociality help to explain their unique forms of cognition and morality. © 2014. The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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A significant amount of our beliefs are likely to be social ones.
“A significant amount of our beliefs are thus likely to be social ones (Tomasello 2014: 190f).”
From What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias? (2022) · cites this paper as Tomasello 2014
The “Implications for Cognition and Morality” section (page unavailable in our copy) describes human thinking as shaped by social perspectives, shared intentionality, and group norms. That supports the idea that some beliefs are social, but the paper does not establish that a significant amount of our beliefs are social ones. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredOur beliefs about people's social standing, knowledge, intentions, abilities, etc. are critical for our flourishing.
“as noted, we are ultra-social and ultra-cooperative, and our beliefs about people's social standing, knowledge, intentions, abilities, etc. are critical for our flourishing (Sterelny 2007: 720;Tomasello 2014: 190f;Henrich 2016).”
From What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias? (2022) · cites this paper as Tomasello 2014: 190f
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- Authors
- Tomasello, M.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Tomasello, Michael
- ORCID
- Tomasello, Michael
- Venue
- European Journal of Social Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-04
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 187-194
- ISSN
- 0046-2772 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-0992
- PMC
- PMC4302252
- OpenAlex
- W2121746596
- Cited by
- 545
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 57 · 2025: 60 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 90 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 56.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- European Journal of Social Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DukeSpace (Duke University) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- human sociality, cooperation, prosocial behavior, conformity, social norms, great apes, children, evolutionary psychology, foraging, cultural groups, morality, cognition
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