#725 Sarah Mathew: Human Sociality, Cooperation, Reciprocity, and Warfare
RECORDED ON OCTOBER 12th 2022.
Dr. Sarah Mathew is Associate Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She studies the evolution of human ultra-sociality and the role of culture in enabling it. She is especially interested in how humans evolved the capacity to cooperate with millions of genetically unrelated individuals, and how this links to the origins of moral sentiments, prosocial behavior, norms, and large-scale warfare. To address these issues, she directs a theoretically-informed field research program among the Turkana, a subsistence pastoral society in Kenya who cooperate at a large scale, including in lethal interethnic raids, without formal centralized political institutions.
In this episode, we talk about the evolution of human sociality. We start by talking about how human sociality differs from the sociality of other closely-related species, and what enables it. We get into perception errors, what they are, and how they impact reciprocity. We discuss how humans cooperate with an immense number of genetically unrelated individuals. We talk about what leads to warfare, and the phenomenon of moral injury and how it relates to PTSD. Finally, we talk about the role of culture in facilitating small-scale cooperation.
Time Links:
Intro
How human sociality differs from the sociality of other closely-related species
Why is it a ultra-sociality?
What enables human sociality?
Perception errors: what they are, and how they impact reciprocity
How humans cooperate with an immense number of genetically unrelated individuals
What leads to warfare?
What is moral injury, and how does it relate to PTSD?
The role of culture in facilitating small-scale cooperation
Follow Dr. Mathew’s work!
Follow Dr. Mathew’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/3pUY26w
Website: https://bit.ly/3b6hYz8
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/39H4xoO
Twitter handle: @SarahMathew1