Social Conventions, Institutions, and Human Uniqueness: Lessons from Children and Chimpanzees

Wyman, Emily; Rakoczy, Hannes

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-11668-1_6

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Importantly, pretend stipulations are assigned and respected by a small number of people, are not applicable to a wide community, do not constitute part of a wide web of function assignments, and are temporary and do not have consequences out of the context of the game scenario (Wyman & Rakoczy, 2011). This similar, yet simpler institutional structure of pretense deems participating in these episodes suitable as a cradle for understanding more complex social institutions (Rakoczy, 2007).…”

Section: Understanding Social Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The red spots are now lava, we shouldn’t step on them” - the joint creation of novel arbitrary social contexts in pretend play

Andrási¹,

Király²

2022

Preprint

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Pretend play has been extensively studied in developmental science. First, we briefly review theories regarding the cognitive underpinnings of pretend play and proposals about its potential role in development. Following this, we explore accounts of pretense which emphasize the social nature of this type of play in early childhood and propose an extension to a novel account of playing in general (Chu & Schulz, 2020) by exploiting the importance of social interactions in pretense. We contend that engaging in shared pretending during early childhood can be considered a manifestation of children’s ability to participate in and set up arbitrary contextual boundaries with others. Additionally, pretend stipulations result in information that is “true” locally and contingently within the pretend framework and is only valid for a limited group of people. Engaging in pretend play thus may allow children to gain a deeper understanding of how some information is useful only within a certain scope and support them both in creating and identifying social contexts. Being sensitive to social context is crucial to navigate successfully in societies that are becoming increasingly multicultural.

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Section: Understanding Social Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The red spots are now lava, we shouldn’t step on them” - the joint creation of novel arbitrary social contexts in pretend play

Andrási¹,

Király²

2022

Preprint

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“…In other words, they are experienced as having transcendental permanence. This, Bloch argues, is the result of the uniquely human capacity for imagination (see also Rakoczy, 2008 ; Wyman and Rakoczy, 2011 , for a cognate point).…”

Section: Another Look At Incestmentioning

confidence: 99%

The causal cognition of wrong doing: incest, intentionality, and morality

Astuti

Bloch

2015

Front. Psychol.

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The paper concerns the role of intentionality in reasoning about wrong doing. Anthropologists have claimed that, in certain non-Western societies, people ignore whether an act of wrong doing is committed intentionally or accidentally. To examine this proposition, we look at the case of Madagascar. We start by analyzing how Malagasy people respond to incest, and we find that in this case they do not seem to take intentionality into account: catastrophic consequences follow even if those who commit incest are not aware that they are related as kin; punishment befalls on innocent people; and the whole community is responsible for repairing the damage. However, by looking at how people reason about other types of wrong doing, we show that the role of intentionality is well understood, and that in fact this is so even in the case of incest. We therefore argue that, when people contemplate incest and its consequences, they simultaneously consider two quite different issues: the issue of intentionality and blame, and the much more troubling and dumbfounding issue of what society would be like if incest were to be permitted. This entails such a fundamental attack on kinship and on the very basis of society that issues of intentionality and blame become irrelevant. Using the insights we derive from this Malagasy case study, we re-examine the results of Haidt’s psychological experiment on moral dumbfoundedness, which uses a story about incest between siblings as one of its test scenarios. We suggest that the dumbfoundedness that was documented among North American students may be explained by the same kind of complexity that we found in Madagascar. In light of this, we discuss the methodological limitations of experimental protocols, which are unable to grasp multiple levels of response. We also note the limitations of anthropological methods and the benefits of closer cross-disciplinary collaboration.

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“…Importantly, they actively enforce norms toward third parties (e.g. Schmidt, Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2012;Wyman, Rakoczy & Tomasello, 2009;see Rakozcky & Schmidt, 2013;Schmidt & Tomasello, 2012, for reviews), even if norms do not directly involve them or are completely arbitrary (Rossano, 2012;. From 2 years of age, for instance, children intervene when someone does not conform to the norms (e.g.…”

Section: 2 Shared Norms and Conformitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution and development of human cooperation

Amici

2015

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Humans have attained an unparalleled level of sophistication when engaging in collaborative and cooperative activities. Remarkably, the skills and motivation to engage in complex forms of collaboration and cooperation seem to emerge early on during infancy and childhood. In this paper, I extensively review the literature on the evolution and development of human cooperation, emphasizing important aspects of inter-cultural variation in collaborative and cooperative behaviour. This will not only allow us to confront the different evolutionary scenarios in which cooperation may have emerged, but will especially provide the reader with a first orientation in the abundant literature on human cooperation.

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Social Conventions, Institutions, and Human Uniqueness: Lessons from Children and Chimpanzees

Cited by 5 publications

References 87 publications

“The red spots are now lava, we shouldn’t step on them” - the joint creation of novel arbitrary social contexts in pretend play

“The red spots are now lava, we shouldn’t step on them” - the joint creation of novel arbitrary social contexts in pretend play

The causal cognition of wrong doing: incest, intentionality, and morality

The evolution and development of human cooperation

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