CHAPTER 16 WHY US? The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter Joseph Henrich

CHAPTER 16 WHY US? The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

Joseph Henrich

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The first thing to realize is that our species is probably not the only one whose brains and bodies have been shaped by the importance of social learning.
Note:NN SIAMO GLI UNICI A PUNTARE SUL SOCIALE

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In no other living species has this process sparked substantial cumulative cultural evolution
Note:LA NOSTRA UNICITÀ

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The reason why other species haven’t experienced this may lie in a kind of start-up problem.
Note:START UP PROBLEM... X GLI ALTRI

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if we can somehow expand the size and complexity of a species’ cultural repertoire without altering its brain size, then there will be more good adaptive stuff in the world to learn from others.
Note:PRIMO CANALE COEVIL... UN CERVELLO MINUTO RISPETTO AL SAPERE POTENZIALE VALORZZA LO SCAMBIO

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we can somehow lower the costs of bigger brains. These costs are in part actually incurred by the mother, since she has to supply longer periods of care
Note:SECODO CANALE... LA SOCIALITÁ DEVE COMPENSARE LE LUNGHE CURE

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Large, Ground-Dwelling Primates Produce Bigger Cultural Accumulations
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Primates evolved hands for eating and hanging around in trees as well as for traveling. But when they descend from the trees to the ground, the possibilities created by having hands open up. For some primates, spending time on the ground—terrestriality—fosters the development of more tool types and more-complex tools, and a greater spread of those skills by social learning.
Note:PIÙ ATTREZZI GIÙ DAGLI ALBERI

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a move out of the trees and onto the ground was well underway by 5 million years ago.
Note:TEMPI

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Predation Favors Larger Groups, Which Favor Greater Cultural Accumulations
Note:BANDE DI CACCIATORI E SOCIALITÁ

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Faced with increased predation, mammals often respond behaviorally by forming larger groups, since there’s safety in numbers.
Note:ASSICURARSI DAGLI ALTRI PREDATORI

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As a by-product of this defensive strategy, larger groups might have caused an increase in the size and complexity of toolkits, skills, and learned bodies of know-how, as larger groups generated, spread, and preserved more innovations and ideas—
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Shifting Environmental Conditions Favor More Social Learning
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Mathematical models of evolutionary processes show that a greater reliance on social learning over individual learning is favored when environments destabilize
Note:AMBIENTI PRECARI RENDONO LA SOCIALITÀ PIÙ CONVENIENTE

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The Sociality-Care Pathway
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To create bigger-brained primates, moms need to invest more time
Note:IL PROBLEMA PER SUPERARE LA SOGLIA

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Chimpanzee moms have to nurse for 5 years, and so have 5 to 6 years between births. The problem is that species who push this too far are more likely to go extinct
Note:ESEMPIO DELLA SCIMMIA

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Pair-Bonding, Social Learning, and Families
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Increasing group size and social learning about local resources may favor pair-bonding strategies
Note:COME NASCE LA COPPIA? SE TUTTI GLI INDIVIDUI SONO UGUALI IL COMUNISMO DEI FIGLI E' LA REGOLA. LE DIFFERENZE FANNO NASCERE LA NECESSITA' DI RICONOSCERE PER INVESTIRE. DUE POSSIBILI DIFFERENZE: 1) FORZA/VIOLENZA 2) CULTURA - QUANDO LA FORZA E' DIFFERENTE: 1) NEI GRUPPI PICCOLI DOMINA IL MASCHIO ALFA 2) NEI GRUPPI GRANDI (TROPPO RISCHIO PER IL DOMINANTE) LO SCAMBIO E' PIù CONVENIENTE E SI VA' VERSO LE COPPIE.... MA GRUPPI GRANDI SIGNIFICA ANCHE PIU' NECESSITA' DI SOCIAL LEARNING E CULTURA... ULTERIORE SPINTA ALLA DIFFERENZIAZIONE E QUINDI ALLA COPPIA

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as the density of males increases in a group, the payoffs from using dominance go down, since males have to fight off more competitors and keep track of more females.
Note:LA VIOLENZA NN PAGA NELLA COMPETIZIONE SESSUALE DEI GRANDI MASCHI

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in using pair-bonding strategies, males seek to develop ongoing dyadic relationships with females by offering things like meat, protection for her and her offspring, and potentially care for her offspring. In exchange, he gets preferred sexual access
Note:STRATEGIA PAIR BONDING... LA VIOLENZA È USATA X DONARE ALLA FEMMINA ANZICHÈ CONTRO GLI ALTRI MASCHI

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Ngogo chimpanzee
Note:STUDIATI PER IL PASSAGGIO AL PAIR

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Social learning means that males may come with a kind of cultural inheritance that may be of value to females.
Note:OLTRE ALLA FORZA CONTA LA CULTURA

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males have something to offer—local knowledge.
Note:NELLE SCIMMIE SI VA A CASA DEL MASCHIO

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in a large ape group in which females are immigrants, females will benefit from pair-bonding by getting access to local knowledge (along with the usual protection, food, etc.), and males will benefit from pair-bonding by mitigating fierce male-male competition.
Note:CONCLUSIONE

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Pair-bonding in large primate groups will increase the recognition of blood relatives—particularly siblings, half-siblings, fathers, and perhaps fathers’ brothers (uncles).
Note:IL PAIR BONDING FACILITA IL RICONOSCIMENTO

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At some point in all this, females began to evolve what researchers call concealed ovulation, or ovulatory crypsis. In many primates, such as chimpanzees, female bodies unmistakably signal when they are sexually receptive and capable of getting pregnant, sometimes using shiny buttock swellings. This means that once a male has hung around a female long enough, he’ll know her cycle, and thus know when it’s safe to head off to find some more receptive females or build alliances among males.
Note:OVULAZIONE

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If mom expresses kindness toward dad and grooms him, then our young learner feels more positive toward this male as well. If nothing else, daughters may copy mom’s practices of “hanging around dad,” which will put her in contact with her brothers.
Note:COME SI RINFORZA IL PAIR BONDING

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Expanding one’s recognized network of kin also means that learners will now have more opportunities for social learning (arrow T).
Note:PARENTELA E SOCIAL LEARNING

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Help for Mother and the Division of Information
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Detailed studies of alloparental care in eight small-scale societies show that mothers do only about half of the direct child care.
Note:CURE DELLA MAMMA NELLA FAMIGLIA ALLARGATA... PIÙ AIUTO PIÙ POSSIBILITÀ DI INVESTIRE TEMPO... LA PARENTELA CERTA AIUTA

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By contrast, other ape mothers do nearly 100% of the direct care.
Note:SCIMMIE A PARENTELA NON RICONOSCIBILE

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Pair-bonding means that many relatives who previously would have had little or no recognition of their relatedness can now identify and build relationships with each other.
Note:VANTAGGIO DEL SISTEMA A COPPIE

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Greater social learning also means that young parents and alloparents can rapidly tap into the know-how of prior generations
Note:GREATER SOCIAL LEARNING

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Moreover, sophisticated social learning means that various females have incentives to help mom with her offspring
Note:AIUTO ALLA MAMMA

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later in human evolution, alloparenting would have become increasingly influenced by social norms. For example, among Hadza hunter-gatherers, the evolutionary anthropologist Alyssa Crittenden tells of a young girl who was repeatedly scolded because she refused to assist a mother with her baby.
Note:EVOLUZIONE CULTURALE DELL ALLOPARENTING

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those species with more intensive alloparenting are more proactive in helping their group mates.
Note:L ALLOPARENTING RENDRE PIÙ PRO SOCIAL

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The Beginning of Tribes
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Pair-bonds can also socially connect different groups, thereby opening the flow of cultural information and increasing the size and complexity of toolkits by expanding the collective brain
Note:LA COPPIA ALL ORIGINE DELLA TRIBÙ

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Later, once our ancestors began acquiring packages of social norms that prescribe, extend, and reinforce behavioral patterns, pair-bonds transform into marriages, and fathers into dads (see chapter 9
Note:NASCITA DEL MATRIMONIO

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Why Living Apes Haven’t Crossed the Rubicon
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Gorillas, for example, do pair-bond but live in single-family groups with only one male and several females. These groups are too small for cumulative cultural evolution.
Note:L HAREM DEI GORILLA... GRUPPI PICCOLI

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orangutans are rather solitary and don’t pair bond, which means that young orangutans often grow up with only their mother to learn from. With little access to others for social learning,
Note:ORANGHI SENZA PARENTELA

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Chimpanzees are more group oriented but have a fission-fusion form of social organization that still means that young chimps mostly hang around their moms.
Note:SCIMPANZÉ... COPPIE ELASTICHE

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chimpanzees really only have access to mom as a model (90% of the time),
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narrow evolutionary bridge across the Rubicon I’ve constructed begins with a large ground-dwelling ape who is forced to live in larger groups (by predation) in which at least some members of both sexes have evolutionary incentives to pair-bond.
Note:UNICITÀ DELL UOMO

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bigger brains calibrated to rely on learning from others can’t pay for themselves unless there is already a lot to learn out there in the minds of others.
QUANDO AVERE CERVELLO NPAGA... L ACCESSO ALL ESPERIENZA ALTRUI GRAZIE ALLA PARENTELA