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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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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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