Friday, July 20, 2012

Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22804772


 2012 Jul 12. [Epub ahead of print]

Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality.

Source

Department of Developmental Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; email: tomas@eva.mpg.de.

Abstract

From an evolutionary perspective, morality is a form of cooperation. Cooperation requires individuals either to suppress their own selfinterest or to equate it with that of others. We review recent research on the origins of human morality, both phylogenetic (research with apes) and ontogenetic (research with children). For both time frames we propose a two-step sequence: first a second-personal morality in which individuals are sympathetic or fair to particular others, and second an agent-neutral morality in which individuals follow and enforce group-wide social norms. Human moralityarose evolutionarily as a set of skills and motives for cooperating with others, and the ontogeny of these skills and motives unfolds in part naturally and in part as a result of sociocultural contexts and interactions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 64 is November 30, 2012. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.

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