Human Social Evolution: Self-Domestication or Self-Control?

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Dor Shilton¹  Mati Breski¹  Daniel Dor²  Eva Jablonka¹ 

[1] The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University;The Department of Communication, Tel-Aviv University;Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics, United Kingdom

关键词: self-domestication hypothesis;    human social evolution;    language evolution;    music evolution;    emotional control;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00134

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The self-domestication hypothesis suggests that, like mammalian domesticates, humans have gone through a process of selection against aggression – a process that in the case of humans was self-induced. Here, we extend previous proposals and suggest that what underlies human social evolution is selection for socially mediated emotional control and plasticity. In the first part of the paper we highlight general features of human social evolution, which, we argue, is more similar to that of other social mammals than to that of mammalian domesticates and is therefore incompatible with the notion of human self-domestication. In the second part, we discuss the unique aspects of human evolution and propose that emotional control and social motivation in humans evolved during two major, partially overlapping stages. The first stage, which followed the emergence of mimetic communication, the beginnings of musical engagement, and mimesis-related cognition, required socially mediated emotional plasticity and was accompanied by new social emotions. The second stage followed the emergence of language, when individuals began to instruct the imagination of their interlocutors, and to rely even more extensively on emotional plasticity and culturally learned emotional control. This account further illustrates the significant differences between humans and domesticates, thus challenging the notion of human self-domestication.

【 授权许可】

CC BY