In the Light of Evolution Volume VII: The Human Mental Machinery (2014) / Chapter Skim
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2 Affiliation, Empathy, and the Origins of Theory of Mind--Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L. Cheney
2 Affiliation, Empathy, and the Origins of Theory of Mind--Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L. Cheney
Pages 19-36
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From page 19... ...
We first review evidence from both humans and other animals indicating that reflexive and reflec tive mental state attributions are inextricably linked and play a crucial role in promoting affiliative social bonds. We next describe results from free-ranging female baboons showing that individuals who show high rates of affiliative behavior form stronger social bonds with other females.
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From page 20... ...
Second, to what kinds of mental states are animals attentive: more rudimentary psychological states, like another individual's gaze direction or its intentions, or more complex states, like another individual's knowledge or beliefs? These distinctions are not easy to draw, even in humans, where reflective, conscious mindreading about others' knowledge and beliefs is built on and develops gradually from reflexive, unconscious recognition of, for example, another's direction of gaze (Onishi and Baillargeon, 2005; Apperly, 2012)
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From page 21... ...
Then, using data on wild female baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus) , we suggest that individual variation in the motivation to attend to social interactions and react to social challenges is positively correlated with measures that have previously been shown to be linked to the formation of social bonds and, ultimately, enhanced reproductive success.
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From page 22... ...
It is well known that viewing others yawn can elicit spontaneous yawning in oneself. Even this apparently reflexive response, however, seems to vary according to an individual's sensitivity to more reflective behavior, including face recognition and understanding of others' mental states (Platek et al., 2003)
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From page 23... ...
, suggesting that call convergence is associated with, and may even promote, social affiliation. In practice, it is almost impossible to distinguish reflective empathy from more reflexive forms and learned negative associations (de Waal, 2012)
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From page 24... ...
If empathy and affiliation have indeed been under strong selective pressure and lie at the roots of ToM, it should be possible to link these behaviors to fitness. Indeed, there is growing evidence that such a link can be made, because empathy and affiliation help individuals to form and maintain social bonds, and these bonds promote fitness.
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From page 25... ...
EMPATHY, SOCIAL BONDS, AND REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS IN WILD FEMALE BABOONS Social Bonds Like many other species of Old World monkey, baboons live in large social groups (~75 individuals) composed of both kin and nonkin.
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From page 26... ...
Personality Styles and Social Bond Strength We applied exploratory principal component analysis to the behavior of 45 female baboons over a 7-year period (Seyfarth et al., 2012)
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From page 27... ...
To test whether variation in personality traits was also associated with variation in females' ability and/or motivation to keep track of, anticipate, and react adaptively to social events, we examined females' responses to three different types of social challenges. We were interested not in females' responses to adversity itself -- because we expected little individual variation in responses to real, ongoing threats -- but their ability to anticipate adversity, respond adaptively to adversity after it had occurred, and keep track of social interactions that had the potential to influence their own relationships.
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From page 28... ...
Thus, individuals who scored high on Nice tended to show increases in GC levels in response to male immigration, whereas those who scored high on Aloof and Loner tended to be less responsive. Changes in Grooming Behavior After the Death of a Close Relative Females also experience elevated GC levels after the death of a close adult female relative, probably in part because the death results in the loss of a regular grooming partner.
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From page 29... ...
females had a higher or lower number of partners than unaffected females seemed to be related to their personality scores. Females scoring high on the Loner component had fewer grooming partners than unaffected females (β = −1.138, SE = 0.866, t = −1.314, P = 0.203)
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From page 30... ...
Variation in the Strength of Responses During Playback Experiments Playback experiments are designed to test subjects' knowledge of other individuals' dominance ranks and kinship as well as their memory of recent social interactions and their participants. Consider reconciliation, for example.
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From page 31... ...
Discussion: Social Challenges Previous analyses (Seyfarth et al., 2012) showed that females scoring high on the Nice component have stronger social bonds with other females.
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From page 32... ...
Females with high Nice and Aloof scores had more grooming partners than unaffected females after the death of a close relative, suggesting that they were attempting to identify new social partners. In contrast, females who scored high on Loner had fewer partners than other females, suggesting that they made no such effort.
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From page 33... ...
Instead, data suggest that differences in personality styles may be associated with greater responsiveness to social challenges and greater motivation to attend to, recall, and anticipate social interactions. In a somewhat similar study of captive rhesus macaques, males who scored high on a sociability index (defined as the motivation to seek out others)
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From page 34... ...
In sum, a rudimentary ToM may have evolved because, in social animals, reflexive empathy and joint attention are both emotionally rewarding and adaptive. Individuals who are motivated to attend to others' behavioral, attentional, and emotional states are more likely to interact positively with others and form stronger social bonds.
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From page 35... ...
To test for a relation between scores on principal components and dependent variables, we used linear mixed models (lmer in R) , entering female identification and year as random factors.
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