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The architecture of human kin detection
Open accessAbstract
Evolved mechanisms for assessing genetic relatedness have been found in many species, but their existence in humans has been a matter of controversy. Here we report three converging lines of evidence, drawn from siblings, that support the hypothesis that kin detection mechanisms exist in humans. These operate by computing, for each familiar individual, a unitary regulatory variable (the kinship index) that corresponds to a pairwise estimate of genetic relatedness between self and other. The cues that the system uses were identified by quantitatively matching individual exposure to potential cues of relatedness to variation in three outputs relevant to the system's evolved functions: sibling altruism, aversion to personally engaging in sibling incest, and moral opposition to third party sibling incest. As predicted, the kin detection system uses two distinct, ancestrally valid cues to compute relatedness: the familiar other's perinatal association with the individual's biological mother, and duration of sibling coresidence.
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“Because pathogen undetectability and lethal allele homozygosity clearly threaten genetic extinction, incestuous sexual intercourse elicits core disgust (Lieberman et al. 2007).”
From Disgusting Bodies, Disgusting Religion: The Biology of Tantra (2011) · cites this paper as Lieberman et al. 2007
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Proximate and ultimate explanations are required for a comprehensive understanding of partner rape
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“Ask men and women why they are not sexually attracted to their siblings, and they will likely be unaware of the survival and reproductive costs associated with deleterious recessive mutations and short-generation pathogens (e.g., Lieberman, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2007 ).”
BackgroundHuman kin recognition is self- rather than family-referential
Bressan, P., & Zucchi, G. (2009) · Biology Letters · doi:10.1098/rsbl.2008.0789 · Cited by 41
Automated kinship verification and identification through human facial images: a survey
Almuashi, M., Hashim, S. Z. M., Mohamad, D., Alkawaz, M. H., & Ali, A. (2015) · Multimedia Tools and Applications · doi:10.1007/s11042-015-3007-5 · Cited by 41
“In biology, kinship typically refers to the degree of genetic relatedness or coefficient of relationship between individual members of the same species [3, 24, 39].”
BackgroundSznycer, D., Delton, A. W., Robertson, T. E., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2018) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.07.005 · Cited by 43
Self-citationVisual Phenotype Matching: Cues to Paternity Are Present in Rhesus Macaque Faces
Kazem, A. J. N., & Widdig, A. (2013) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055846 · Cited by 41
“[10,11].”
Tanskanen, A. O., Danielsbacka, M., & Rotkirch, A. (2021) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2021.05.004 · Cited by 40
Westermarck, Freud, and the Incest Taboo: Does Familial Resemblance Activate Sexual Attraction?
Fraley, R. C., & Marks, M. J. (2010) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167210377180 · Cited by 40
Guzmán, R. A., Barbato, M. T., Sznycer, D., & Cosmides, L. (2022) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2214005119 · Cited by 40
Self-citationHuman Beings as Evolved Nepotists
Stewart‐Williams, S. (2008) · Human Nature · doi:10.1007/s12110-008-9048-y · Cited by 39
“Two items were used: willingness to help Person A in a life-or-death situation (for example, rescuing Person A from a burning building), and willingness to donate a kidney to Person A. Both items have been used in previous research (Burnstein et al. 1994; Lieberman et al. 2007; Stewart-Williams 2007).”
MethodKin Affiliation Across the Ovulatory Cycle
Lieberman, D., Pillsworth, E. G., & Haselton, M. G. (2010) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797610390385 · Cited by 39
Self-citationChildren’s Expectations and Understanding of Kinship as a Social Category
Spokes, A. C., & Spelke, E. S. (2016) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00440 · Cited by 39
“…memory confusion paradigm (Lieberman et al., 2008), and they show evidence of a kin detection Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 March 2016 | Volume 7 | Article 440 mechanism that influences opinions and behaviors related to sibling altruism and incest disgust (Lieberman et al., 2007).”
BackgroundCoevolution of cooperation, causal cognition and mindreading
Barrett, H. C., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2010) · Communicative & Integrative Biology · doi:10.4161/cib.3.6.12604 · Cited by 38
“One reason that kin-based cooperation is thought to be so common is that, as Hamilton(5) pointed out, descent from a common ancestor is a highly statistically reliable cue to probability of shared genes, and biologists have discovered several reliable means of inferring shared ancestry, such as direct observation of b…”
BackgroundSelf-citationBovet, J., Barthes, J., Durand, V., Michel Raymond, A., & Alvergne, A. (2012) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049791 · Cited by 38
“This avoidance is in fact enforced by a biological mechanism (Westermark effect) that suppresses sexual attraction toward co-residents during childhood–generally siblings or close members of kin [56,57,58,59].”
BackgroundEmbodiment, Enaction, and Culture: Investigating the Constitution of the Shared World
Durt, C., Fuchs, T. A. E., & Tewes, C. (2017) · Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) · Cited by 39
Framing effects: Behavioral dynamics and neural basis
Zheng, H., Wang, X. T., & Zhu, L. (2010) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.06.031 · Cited by 38
Does Facial Resemblance Enhance Cooperation?
Giang, T., Bell, R., & Buchner, A. (2012) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047809 · Cited by 35
“increase the effects of this variable [6].”
Thünken, T., Bakker, T. C. M., Baldauf, S. A., & Kullmann, H. (2007) · Ethology · doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.2007.01422.x · Cited by 36
“In the animal kingdom, there are numerous examples that individuals avoid mating with close kin using kin recognition mechanisms (e.g. fishes: Frommen & Bakker 2006; Gerlach & Lysiak 2006; birds: Nakagawa & Waas 2004; humans: Wolf 2004; Lieberman et al. 2007).”
Kin and kinship psychology both influence cooperative coordination in Yasawa, Fiji
McNamara, R. A., & Henrich, J. (2017) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.09.004 · Cited by 42
Metadata
- Authors
- Lieberman, D., Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lieberman, Debra
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2007-02
- Volume
- 445
- Issue
- 7129
- Pages
- 727-731
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC3581061
- OpenAlex
- W2167697644
- Cited by
- 748
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 60 · 2020: 66 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 46 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 47 · 2015: 38 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 36 · 2012: 58
- FWCI
- 36.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (DP1OD000516)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- genetic relatedness, inbreeding avoidance, human evolution, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Altruism, Animals, Child, Child, Preschool, Cues, Data Collection, Humans, Incest, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Middle Aged, Models, Biological, Mothers, Sexual Behavior, Sibling Relations, Time Factors, Artifacts, Living Donors, Siblings, Heredity
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