An article in the New York Times (We May Be Born With an Urge to Help) suggests that the ongoing anthropological argument about the relative importance of aggression versus cooperation on the development of human society may be swinging in favor of the DFH preference. As a blogger, I found the following particularly poignant :
Children not only feel they should obey these rules themselves, but also that they should make others in the group do the same. Even 3-year-olds are willing to enforce social norms. If they are shown how to play a game, and a puppet then joins in with its own idea of the rules, the children will object, some of them vociferously.
Where do they get this idea of group rules, the sense of “we who do it this way”? Dr. Tomasello believes children develop what he calls “shared intentionality,” a notion of what others expect to happen and hence a sense of a group “we.” It is from this shared intentionality that children derive their sense of norms and of expecting others to obey them.
Shared intentionality, in Dr. Tomasello’s view, is close to the essence of what distinguishes people from chimpanzees. A group of human children will use all kinds of words and gestures to form goals and coordinate activities, but young chimps seem to have little interest in what may be their companions’ minds.
Ruckus
Anne
But many animals do work together to form a cohesive group. Chimps, canines, ants, bees, geese and I’m sure there are many others. Do they not work together for the betterment of the group? Do they not punish or cajole each other to work together? That they don’t communicate the same way as humans is pretty clear, but they do seem to have ways to and do communicate or they couldn’t work as effectively together. It may be physical or sounds or even looks but I find it hard to believe that groups are formed that allow the animals to survive better if at all, without some form of communication other than genetics. It almost seems that humans are the one animal that a great number of do not seem to work together for the common good/advancement. And they do it by not communicating, by sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling lalalalalalala… or sticking their heads up their asses. At least then we shouldn’t be able to hear the yelling.
donovong
So, now I better understand why George W. Bush got his nickname, “Chimpy.”
Batocchio
Thanks, it’s an interesting piece.
(When McArdle was a child, she tried to join with the puppet and install herself as glibertarian queen over the other children.)
aimai
Very interesting, thanks for the link. I’ve got two children and its fascinating to see how very rule bound and social most children are. At least, if they are allowed to be. Children’s sociality and their mentality and morals are as subject to degradation as that of the world around them. Just as most children become dumber as the people around them become dumber, so children become less giving, social, and generous as the people around them fail to display those behaviors.
One of the experiments/art projects I always wanted to do was to film people at the zoo explaining animal behavior to their children. You wouldn’t believe the way people project their own craziness, selfishness, and rage onto the behavior of animals and thus naturalize it for their children.
aimai
arguingwithsignposts
I believe there was a novel about this, something about flies, lord of…
We create our destruction or our salvation in the guise of our children.
Slocum
There’s nothing particulary “DFH” about these findings.
Kids naturally help. My 15-month-old tries to wipe the table if there’s a spill. But that doesn’t mean very much. It’s a formal response to assist another in some goal. It has nothing to do with the value of the goal.
But there’s no reason that joint task can’t be raping and massacreing some other cooperative social group. This behavior has been observed by many in social environments often called “playgrounds” by their participants.
Check it out:
Slocum
Last two paras should be blockquoted also. Sorry for the screw up.
Little Macayla's Friend
Good morning Anne,
Although I haven’t read The Age of Empathy, this quote from the NYT article has been my experience:
And again from direct experience, the word is compassion, rather than empathy (coined 1858), or a combination of compassion – empathy. I think most of us start out as pure spirits, that the empathy is far deeper than social rewards or punishment. In the everyday world, it’s the linking we feel between any very young children and ourselves, without all those “whims” in the way.
r€nato
thoughts:
1) I like that it removes altruism from the world of religion. I don’t believe for a moment that the only thing that stops us from killing our neighbors and taking their stuff, is the Decalogue.
We don’t kill members of our tribe and take their stuff; however there is far less inhibition against killing members of other tribes and taking their stuff. Hey wait, that’s a Biblical value. Maybe I’m wrong after all.
2) As I read your post, it occurred to me that the flip side of ‘group rules’, is the high school clique or the mob mentality. It makes me curious about where exactly the line between ‘altruism’ and ‘tribalism’ lies. When does the ‘we’ decide that it’s not enough to simply sanction or disapprove of those who deviate from ‘group rules’? When do ‘group rules’ stop becoming a shared sense of ‘the rules’ and morph into mindless conformity or a means of the few controlling the many?
I wish there was money in being a philosopher. I could sit around all day and think about stuff like this.
WereBear
Western Religion has always sought to take utterly basic drives and co-opt them for other purposes.
I can say that cats, even kittens, show concern for each other and their humans. Would that Republicans do as well.
r€nato
you know what’s weird? I regularly view this blog in Firefox. I was doing a reload of the window and I am positive that I saw the ‘edit’ options appear briefly, then disappear once the page finished loading.
I’m thinking I know why this happens in FF but I can’t recall exactly what the solution is at this time. It might have to do with stylesheets. I came across this recently but I’m not remembering what I did to fix it.
Max Power
Correcting a typo
“A group of human children will use all kinds of words and gestures to form goals and coordinate activities, but young libertarians seem to have little interest in what may be their companions’ minds.”
aimai
How did I miss this Charles Johnson flip? did you guys blog it yesterday?
aimai
jwb
@aimai: It was mentioned in the comments a couple of times.
Napoleon
I think it is and I think it is because with so many people around and with societies being interconnected an aggression model of behavior almost always ends up being a net loss game for all involved, whereas more and more there are gains to be had from the cooperative model.
SiubhanDuinne
I know this is an open thread, but sometime today I wouldn’t mind seeing a dedicated thread discussing the pending GE-Vivendi-NBC Universal-Comcast deal (or at least deal in the making). I don’t pretend to understand all the nuances and ramifications, but I’m mighty uncomfy with what appears to be potentially even greater conflation of content (NBC) and delivery (Comcast). It just feels all wrong (not that any of the entities, singly or in combination, are so wonderful right now). Anyhow, I’d welcome some thoughts on this from some of you who have maybe studied these issues more carefully than I have.
Napoleon
@aimai:
What do you mean?
Demo Woman
@SiubhanDuinne: Comcast is also a big internet provider. Net Neutrality becomes more important as an issue if the deal closes.
AhabTRuler
@SiubhanDuinne: To view tonight’s primetime lineup, please be waiting by your television between the hours of 5:00 pm and 1:00 am.
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Kiss your hulu goodbye.
Dave Anderson
Speaking as a dad of an 11 month old, I can not wait till she gets to the shared intentionality point as most play-groups are now composed of a bunch of babies engaged in Brownian motion, clumping and collisions that then break out into quasi-random crawl sprints towards the Cheerios that fell on the ground an hour ago and that the parents/caregivers had not noticed.
Seanly
The segment you quoted doesn’t discuss the point of your first paragraph. The quoted segment seems to indicate that rigidity of following the rules is a typical human behavior.
However, the remainder of the article is quite a nice bit of fresh air. Perhaps Anne Frank was right:
Wilson Heath
I need more coffee to determine if Glen Beck is hitting this level or is just flinging feces. (I said “just” — I know that it isn’t a full either/or.) Chimp or human level communication, his audience is being played, but understanding how may help in countering the nonsense.
Leelee for Obama
@aimai: Could someone link to the Charles Johnson info from yesterday-I missed it, too>
MH
@Leelee for Obama:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right/
zhak
The many Randians on the right won’t like this at all.
Leelee for Obama
@MH: I didn’t go to the comments, as I am easily sickened, but Johnson has made the most amazing conversion! I never, ever go to LGF, because there was always such real evil there. This is quite something!
So, now, there is one more sane person on the opposite side- Wonder if anyone will join him?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I don’t think this implies a tendency toward the DFH side. Actually the opposite: the norm is to keep a set of rules for no reason other than they are the rules. I see this with my three boys. My middle child is our conservative, he like things to have rules and has had the hardest time with situations where the rules are vague or can change, which causes conflict with my oldest who could care less about rules, and my youngest who at four is a master of Calvinball. While in my house our middle child and my wife are outnumbered, even a lot of my friends and family who vote D have trouble with things changing on them, like the openness of gays. My dad for example, wasn’t entirely comfortable with a black man in office, he didn’t feel the country was ready; I have Palin to thank for the fact that something far worse – an airhead from Alaska – could have ended up president caused him to change his mind.
pk
More like a rat leaving a sinking ship. I am not buying the change BS. No one who ran a site like the pure evil LGF can change.
Stefan
A group of human children will use all kinds of words and gestures to form goals and coordinate activities, but young chimps seem to have little interest in what may be [in] their companions’ minds.
So while it may not be the case that humans are descended from chimps, it now seems fairly certain that Republicans are….
RSA
@Ruckus:
Animals do communicate, but there are any number of subtleties that are still the source of discussion in the animal behavior literature. (For example, if a lizard or frog puffs up and changes color to scare off a predator, that’s clearly a signal–to what extent does it constitute communication?) The part about not communicating in the same way can be pretty important; our intuitions about how we communicate don’t always apply very well to how animals communicate.
I think that some of the implications of Tomasello’s term “shared intentionality” aren’t very clear in the article. In the philosophy of mind, “intentionality” is not about the determination to act in a particular way, but rather with the connection between mental states and the outside world: thoughts can be about something. I take it that Tomasello is extending this notion to suggest that there’s a social element to what we think about, and a good deal of the content of our thoughts is concerned with what we presume other people are thinking. Non-human animals aren’t very well equipped to do this.
DZ
While I do not subscribe to the aggression model of human development, I do not find it ‘poignant’ that 3 year olds are already enforcing conformity. I believe that is possible, even desirable, to be quite or even radically non-conformist and still understand how to coexist harmoniously with others in the larger society.
NickM
@aimai:
Excellent point and great idea about the zoo. Listening to adults explain religion to children, or hearing kids recite their lessons, is fascinating as well.
monkeyboy
Children, like many animals that are born initially unable to live on their own, are fairly docile and need their parents to take care of them and to learn from.
However among many animals this docility go away around puberty. That is why adult wolves, chimps, and raccoons make lousy pets – they tend to turn on their owners, not obey them, bite them, etc.
Dogs, in their domestication, have been breed so that their childish docility can extend into adulthood. And similarly, many have argued that humans have domesticated themselves, and that docility gives a reflectional advantage – E.g. Noble Prize winner Herbert Simon paper A mechanism for social selection and successful altruism.(PDF)
Of course humans are only partially domesticated, and their docility is not always complete to the extent of being unquestioning order following robots.
But many of the worst people in the world are those who think that they have grown up and no longer need to follow childish rules.
gex
Such good comments!
Aimai – you are right, human interpretation of animal behavior is a sketchy metric to draw conclusions from. Did you know that now there are hundreds of species with members who exhibit homosexual behaviors but a mere 30 years ago there were none?
DZ – I agree. I don’t see how insisting that everyone follow the rules indicates DFHism. That sounds a lot like what the Christian right likes to do.
And monkeyboy – coming in with some really good science that to me seems likely to hold up and continue gathering evidence.
gex
Also, just want to say thanks to all for the kind words on the other thread.
Of Bugs and Books
Anne,
I left a comment for you about lingonberries at the end of a previous open thread.
asiangrrlMN
@DZ: I agree with DZ. I got the creeps reading the excerpts from this article as someone who never quite got the rules at any point in her life. I wouldn’t want my hypothetical kids to follow rules just because they exist.
asiangrrlMN
@gex: If you are still reading this, gex, I haven’t been around as much lately because of NaNoWriMo, so I just read your comment today. I know exactly what you’re feeling as I struggle with that myself. There are no easy answers, but I would recommend a good therapist if you aren’t seeing one already. A GOOD therapist. I have the name of one if you want. Or, I can get recommendations for you.
The fact that you are here and that you care so damn much about the world around you says many good things about you. I know when I’m depressed, I tend to brood–which is not a good thing. Play with your dog. Take him for a walk. Do something that you enjoy just because. And, keep posting here. I am sending you hugs, support, and some pretty fierce mojo.
licensed to kill time
Anyone who’s had kids knows that the concept of “fair” is a really big deal to them, as in “That’s not FAIR!”. Little commies.
monkeyboy
@licensed to kill time:
Female capuchin monkeys also get upset over unfairness. They are quite happy to do a task for the reward of a cucumber slice – that is unless they see another monkey getting the much better reward of a grape.
roseyv
This is all very nice, but not exactly news. I remember reading about studies suggesting that children (i.e., small humans) are inherently, naturally altruistic almost 30 years ago.
It’s always pleasant to hear, but somehow I doubt any more attention will be paid now than was then. The problem is, the belief in a natural inclination toward generosity and decency and kindness is all very lovely, but there’s no profit in it. If anything, it could put a huge crimp in somebody’s profits. Therefore, it is wrong and bad and must not be discussed.
Ruckus
@RSA:
I know that a lot of research has been done in the area of animal communications and thought process. I feel that one of the areas that is a problem is that species communicate within each species but very little outside of their species. And as several have pointed out groups, clicks, packs, etc. are formed within a species and there can be very little constructive communication between the groups in a species.
IOW how much do we really know about the communication and thought process of a species when we don’t actually communicate with the species as others in the species do? Just because their thought process or communication is different than ours does not mean there is not some level of this happening.
Nethead Jay
@DZ:
Very much agree with you there. Too much conformity really bothers me, whether it’s in individual people, groupings of one sort or another, or society as a whole. I believe that our world would be a better plece if there was more freedom to be different and less pressure to conform and follow more or less restrictive rules.
RSA
@Ruckus:
Good questions, and you’re right about the amount of uncertainty we have. (I didn’t mean to sound dismissive in my comment; sorry if it came out that way.) I do agree that there is communication between animals; it’s just that characterizing it is hard. (I wrote a paper last year on tool-using behavior among animals and had to do a bit of reading on the topic of communicative actions, which is a huge can of worms. Communication in general is just not very well understood, I think.)
Ruckus
@RSA:
No kidding communication is hard. For example – I didn’t take your comments to be dismissive at all, this is a complex subject and there are many blind alleys in the maze that is communication. Hell I don’t even communicate very well with myself sometimes (I still can’t convince myself that brussel sprouts are in any way good. Either for me or tasting). Communicating with other humans (and whatever species Cheney is) either about how much the group should be/act the same or not is almost impossible, and that’s without the use of how many different languages/nuances? (Think of the use of the word pissed – americans use it to denote anger, the british use it to denote drunkenness). Now try to communicate with a different species. See if your cat can make heads or tails of what you are saying. At the same time tell me cats don’t have some short of a thought process. They make decisions, they act on them, they interact with other cats and make decisions about them. And so on. Maybe not on our level, but certainly on the level of teabaggers with their response to media input.
Anyway I always enjoy a discussion about communication even if it almost always seems to become a discussion about a lack of communication.
RSA
@Ruckus:
Yup. I think you’re also right on about there being the temptation to talk more about lack of communication than communication itself. If you’re interested and will excuse a bit of blog-whoring, I wrote something about backchanneling earlier this year, on my now-defunct blog…
Ruckus
@RSA:
Nice post at OS. I used like to read your posts when I was checking there every day.
But I stopped because it seemed a bit of a writers palace and I didn’t feel like I fit in. Or hadn’t suffered long enough, or had enough trials and tribulations or maybe my writing just sucked. Or maybe my communication skills were not appropriate. This could be fun! I could go on like this for a while.
So you don’t write at OS any more? Any reason more serious than mine?
I’ve always liked the whole communications field, that there are certain ways to get an idea across and that successful/powerful people don’t necessarily have better ideas, they just get them across better. We sometimes pay attention to them even if they have bone head ideas. I know that in public speaking to large audiences presentation can be, if not everything, very important. Not just to get more people to pay attention but to get them to listen and possibly understand.
RSA
@Ruckus:
Hey, thanks. (Funny to run into ex-OSers elsewhere–it’s not as if the Internet is a small world. :-) I left OS because I had too much to do in real life. But there was a bit too much drama there for my taste.