Lecture 8 - Social Intelligence And Theory Of Mind Flashcards
What is the cost of having such large brains?
Brains are metabolically costly. They use up to 20% of your energy and they’re also very difficult to develop
Why can we say it’s not physical demand that drove the brain to develop to be larger?
Therefore why is it likely social?
Both primates and hunter gatherers had relatively undemanding lives, they would sit around more than farmers do.
Due to the amount of time primates spend sitting around in groups, grooming etc, it must be these social interactions which drives the expansion.
Social environment is also more complex and less easy to predict than the natural environment (like weather and seasons) and therefore a big brain is more necessary
Name some different areas involved in social interaction that require a larger brain?
Calculations of hierarchy
Knowing who’s the mate of whom
Status seeking
Plot and counterplots
How does reproductive success link to social ability in animals?
Your reproductive success is mainly based on your position in the social structure
How does social complexity correlate with environment?
The less demanding your environment the more social you become. Therefore in zoos the main driving force of mate selection becomes a social one
Human vs human success determines
What do we mean when we say “humans see the world through social spectacles”
Humans attend most to other humans, they are interested in what other people are like, what their intentions are, what motivates them and what they are thinking about.
What personality traits relate to the high social nature of humans?
Agreeableness and empathising
What human development is of interest to many humans and provides them with this stream of social information?
Mass media
Define: animism
Give an example
When you see all of reality as a social phenomenon.
For example, if your laptop crashes you hate it because you believe it’s out to get you or that it’s a malevolent being
Why does social intelligence just increase and increase?
Increased social intelligence leads to increased reproductive success. Which then raises the average level of social intelligence and so on.
What provides the glass ceiling that stops social intelligence increasing too much?
Skull size and rate of survival
What is thought to underpin social intelligence?
Emotions
We can harness our emotions to help us evaluate the personality, motivations and intentions of other members of our species
If emotions are used to understand intentions and thoughts of other con specifics what tasks are they likely to help with?
Theory of mind tasks
When and how can you suffer social intelligence deficits? Does this effects “g” as well”
If you suffer emotional deficits you suffer social deficits.
You can get these emotional deficits, through lesions or inborn like autism.
General intelligence can still be very high however, especially with savants
What is the alternative name for social intelligence?
Machiavellian intelligence, after a renaissance philosopher who wrote the prince, which is about how the ruler should manipulate and deceive his people to stay in power
