Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis
Abstract
Humans have many cognitive skills not possessed by their nearest primate relatives. The cultural intelligence hypothesis argues that this is mainly due to a species-specific set of social-cognitive skills, emerging early in ontogeny, for participating and exchanging knowledge in cultural groups. We tested this hypothesis by giving a comprehensive battery of cognitive tests to large numbers of two of humans' closest primate relatives, chimpanzees and orangutans, as well as to 2.5-year-old human children before literacy and schooling. Supporting the cultural intelligence hypothesis and contradicting the hypothesis that humans simply have more “general intelligence,” we found that the children and chimpanzees had very similar cognitive skills for dealing with the physical world but that the children had more sophisticated cognitive skills than either of the ape species for dealing with the social world.
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People develop a vast array of their capabilities through the process of social learning.
“People develop a vast array of their capabilities through the process of social learning (Henrich, 2017; Herrmann et al., 2007; Heyes, 2018; Tomasello, 1999).”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Herrmann et al., 2007
In many cases, domains of cognition rather than performance on single tasks are most interesting for comparative analysis.
“in many cases, it is domains of cognition rather than performance on single tasks that is most interesting for comparative analysis (e.g., Herrmann et al. 2007).”
From How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology (2012) · cites this paper as Herrmann et al. 2007
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- Authors
- Herrmann, E., Call, J., Hernàndez-Lloreda, M. V., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M.
- Affiliations
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES)
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, D-04103, Germany.
- Corresponding author
- Herrmann, Esther
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2007-09-07
- Volume
- 317
- Issue
- 5843
- Pages
- 1360-1366
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1979486681
- Cited by
- 1,582
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 49 · 2025: 89 · 2024: 102 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 113 · 2021: 94 · 2020: 103 · 2019: 129 · 2018: 117 · 2017: 93 · 2016: 80 · 2015: 56 · 2014: 75 · 2013: 81 · 2012: 100
- FWCI
- 78.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Keywords
- social cognition, human evolution, chimpanzees, orangutans, child cognitive development, primate cognition, general intelligence
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Pan troglodytes, Cognition, Cultural Evolution, Culture, Biological Evolution, Female, Humans, Intelligence Tests, Male, Organ Size, Pongo pygmaeus, Species Specificity
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