Doug Jones | University of Utah (original) (raw)
Papers by Doug Jones
Kinship, 2022
In "Another view of Trobriand kin categories," Lounsbury analyzes Trobriand kin terms by providin... more In "Another view of Trobriand kin categories," Lounsbury analyzes Trobriand kin terms by providing a core genealogical definition for each term, and then showing how a set of reduction rules make it possible to supply terms for more distant relatives. In this article I revisit Lounsbury's analysis in the light of recent advances in linguistics and cognitive science. I show that Trobriand kin terms express a conventionalized tradeoff between expressing relevant information and avoiding complex expressions. Formally, I follow Optimality Theory in developing a constraint-based approach as an alternative to Lounsbury's derivational approach in which reduction rules are not just stipulated but derived. Kin terms are polysemous, with core and extended senses: a collection of markedness scales and a ranked set of distinctive features both (a) marshal core referents of kin terms and (b) select optimal, best-fit terms for kin types outside the core. Apart from its formal merits, this approach clarifies the connection between the Trobrianders's "Crow" kin terminology and their matrilineal institutions. It may also have implications for the "the Crow-Omaha problem"-the relationship between skewed and unskewed cross-parallel distinctions. Finally, the organization of kin terms may provide a window onto an evolved domain of conceptual structure. My discussion concludes with some thoughts on the relationship between kinship, genealogy, and biological relatedness.
PLOS ONE
Barbarism" is perhaps best understood as a recurring syndrome among peripheral societies in respo... more Barbarism" is perhaps best understood as a recurring syndrome among peripheral societies in response to the threats and opportunities presented by more developed neighbors. This article develops a mathematical model of barbarigenesis-the formation of "barbarian" societies adjacent to more complex societies-and its consequences, and applies the model to the case of Europe in the first millennium CE. A starting point is a game (developed by Hirshleifer) in which two players allocate their resources either to producing wealth or to fighting over wealth. The paradoxical result is that a richer and potentially more powerful player may lose out to a poorer player, because the opportunity cost of fighting is greater for the former. In a more elaborate spatial model with many players, the outcome is a wealthpower mismatch: central regions have comparatively more wealth than power, peripheral regions have comparatively more power than wealth. In a model of historical dynamics, a wealth-power mismatch generates a long-lasting decline in social complexity, sweeping from more to less developed regions, until wealth and power come to be more closely aligned. This article reviews how well this model fits the historical record of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Europe both quantitatively and qualitatively. The article also considers some of the history left out of the model, and why the model doesn't apply to the modern world.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010
The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with re... more The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with recent developments in linguistics and cognitive science. The response to comments reaches two broad conclusions. First, the theory may be relevant to several current areas of research, including (a) the nature and scope of the regular, “grammatical” side of language, (b) the organization of different domains of conceptual structure, including parallels across domains, their taxonomic distribution and implications for evolution, and (c) the influence of conceptual structure on social structure. Second, the theory compares favorably with alternatives, including (a) the theory that kin terminology is not really that complicated, (b) the theory that kin terms mirror social categories, (c) componential analysis, and (d) kinship algebra. If further research in anthropology, linguistics, and other fields supports the theory, and confirms the psychological reality of proposed mechanisms, then kin...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1996
Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may i... more Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may involve either selection for altruism or group selection between alternative evolutionarily stable states. The last variety of group selection is likely to have been particularly important in human evolution.
Annual Review of Anthropology, 1999
▪ Studying human behavior in the light of evolutionary theory involves studying the comparative... more ▪ Studying human behavior in the light of evolutionary theory involves studying the comparative evolutionary history of behaviors (phylogeny), the psychological machinery that generates them (mechanisms), and the adaptive value of that machinery in past reproductive competition (natural selection). To show the value of a phylogenetic perspective, I consider the ethology of emotional expression and the cladistics of primate social systems. For psychological mechanisms, I review evidence for a pan-human set of conceptual building blocks, including innate concepts of things, space, and time, of number, of logic, of natural history, and of “other minds” and social life, which can be combined to generate a vast array of culture-specific concepts. For natural selection, I discuss the sexual selection of sex differences and similarities, and the social selection of moral sentiments and group psychology.
American Journal of Human Biology, 1998
A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the arti... more A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the article author(s). All rights reserved. Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Corresponding author’s e-mail: harvey.whitehouse@anthro.ox.ac.uk Citation: Whitehouse, Harvey. 2013. Three Wishes for the World (with comment). Cliodynamics 4: 281–323. SOCIAL EVOLUTION FORUM Three Wishes for the World
A chronicle of the renaissance in kinship studies, these seventeen articles pay tribute to Per Ha... more A chronicle of the renaissance in kinship studies, these seventeen articles pay tribute to Per Hage, one of the founding fathers of the movement and long-time faculty member of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah. With mathematician Frank Harary, Hage pioneered the use of graph theoretical models in anthropology, a systematic analysis of diverse cognitive, social, and cultural components that provides a common technical vocabulary for the entire field. Anthropological studies have benefited from quantitative evaluation, particularly kinship, which is newly appreciated for its application to all social sciences. The chapters of this book, some original works by the contributors and some unpublished Hage material, attest to the importance of the continual study of kinship.
https://www.amazon.com/Kinship-Language-Prehistory-Renaissance-Studies/dp/1607810050/
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2017
Ethnicity looks something like kinship on a larger scale. The same math can be used to measure ge... more Ethnicity looks something like kinship on a larger scale. The same math can be used to measure genetic similarity within ethnic/racial groups and relatedness within families. For example, members of the same continental race are about as related (r = 0.18-0.26) as half-siblings (r = 0.25). However (contrary to some claims) the theory of kin selection does not apply straightforwardly to ethnicity, because inclusive fitness calculations based on Hamilton's rule break down when there are complicated social interactions within groups, and/or groups are large and long-lasting. A more promising approach is a theory of ethnic group selection, a special case of cultural group selection. An elementary model shows that the genetic assimilation of a socially enforced cultural regime can promote group solidarity and lead to the regulation of recruitment to groups, and to altruism between groups, based on genetic similarityin short, to ethnic nepotism. Several lines of evidence, from historical population genetics and political psychology, are relevant here.
PloS one, 2016
Kin selection, which can lead organisms to behave altruistically to their genetic relatives, work... more Kin selection, which can lead organisms to behave altruistically to their genetic relatives, works differently when-as is often the case in human societies-altruism can be boosted by social pressure. Here I present a model of social norms enforced by indirect reciprocity. In the model there are many alternative stable allocations of rewards ("distributional norms"); a stable norm is stable in the sense that each player is best off following the norm if other players do the same. Stable norms vary widely in how equally they reward players with unequal abilities. In a population of mixed groups (some group members follow one norm, some follow another, and some compromise) with modest within-group coefficients of relatedness, selection within groups favors those who compromise, and selection between groups favors generous generalized reciprocity rather than balanced reciprocity. Thus evolved social norms can amplify kin altruism, giving rise to a uniquely human mode of kin-ba...
Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2009
Psychological research in the USA and elsewhere suggests that race is regarded as an underlying, ... more Psychological research in the USA and elsewhere suggests that race is regarded as an underlying, inherited “essential” trait, like membership in a biological species. Yet Brazil has often been regarded as very different from the USA: as a country in which racial variation is seen as more continuous than categorical, more a matter of appearance than descent. This study tests alternative theories of racial cognition in Bahia, Brazil. Data include racial classification of drawings and photographs, judgments of similarity – dissimilarity between racial categories, ideas about expected and possible race of offspring from inter-racial unions, heritability of racial and non-racial traits, and conservation of race through changes in appearance. The research demonstrates consensus over time in appearance-based classification, yet race is also thought of as an “essential” trait. However, racial essences can be mixed, with a person containing the hereditary potential of multiple races, so that...
Human Nature, 1993
The theory of sexual selection suggests several possible explanations for the development of stan... more The theory of sexual selection suggests several possible explanations for the development of standards of physical attractiveness in humans. Asymmetry and departures from average proportions may be markers of the breakdown of developmental stability. Supernormal traits may present age- and sex-typical features in exaggerated form. Evidence from social psychology suggests that both average proportions and (in females) "neotenous" facial traits are indeed more attractive. Using facial photographs from three populations (United States, Brazil, Paraguayan Indians), rated by members of the same three populations, plus Russians and Venezuelan Indians, we show that age, average features, and (in females) feminine/neotenous features all play a role in facial attractiveness.
Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 2011
This article integrates (1) research in the historical dynamics of state societies relating group... more This article integrates (1) research in the historical dynamics of state societies relating group solidarity and group expansion to cultural frontiers, (2) comparative research in anthropology relating matrilocality to a particular variety of internal politics and a particular form of warfare, and (3) interdisciplinary reconstructions of large-scale "demic expansions" and associated kinship systems in prehistory. The argument is that "metaethnic frontiers," where very different cultures clash, are centers for the formation of larger, more enduring, and more militarily effective groups. In small-scale non-state societies, the major path toward the formation of such groups is the establishment of cross-cutting ties among men. This often involves the adoption of matrilocal norms. The current distribution of matrilocality and matrilineality around the world may be partly a residue of major demic expansions in prehistory involving matrilocal tribes. This hypothesis is...
Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 1996
Everyday experience suggests that physical attractiveness is important in personal-and especially... more Everyday experience suggests that physical attractiveness is important in personal-and especially sexual-relationships. This impression is confirmed by a large body of social psychological research.' z2 Cross-cultural surveys and ethnographic accounts show that concern with the attractiveness of potential mates is also common in non-Western societiesand in tribal and peasant cultures3 However, social psychologists and anthropologists have often had a hard time explaining why attractiveness should count for so much, or why some features rather than others should seem particularly attractive. The theoretical difficulties in accounting for physical attraction are brought out in a Brazilian saying, "Beleza n2o p6e na mesa" ("Good looks don't put anything on the table"), which points to the absence of any evident practical advantage to choosing an attractive mate. Faced with these difficulties, a growing number of researchers in biology, psychology, and anthropology have turned to the modern theory of sexual selection, which has been highly successful in explaining nonhuman animals' attractions to traits of no direct ecological utility. In this article, I survey recent efforts to apply the theory of sexual selection to human physical attraction. Sexual selection occurs when some individuals have characteristics that lead them to succeed in mating and fertilization at the expense of others of their sex. Darwin, in On the Origin of Species4 and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,5 introduced the concept of sexual selection and argued that it had been important in shaping traits of no obvious value in the struggle for existence, like the antlers of the stag and the extravagant Doug Jones has carried out research comparing standards of physical attractiveness in the United States, Brazil, Paraguay, and Russia. He is the author of Sexual Selection, Physical Attractiveness and Facial Neoteny: Cross-Cultural Evidence and Implications, published in Current Anthropology, and Physical Attractiveness and the Theory of Sexual Selection: Results from Five Populations, published by the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology. His future research will focus on the life-history consequences of being attractive or unattractive.
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2003
Optimality Theory (OT), a new approach to rules of language, can be used to analyze variation and... more Optimality Theory (OT), a new approach to rules of language, can be used to analyze variation and universals in kin classification. According to the theory, rules of language take the form of ranked constraints that filter random variation; grammatical differences between languages reflect different constraint rankings. Applied to kin terminology, OT provides an elegant account of how universal schemas of sociality generate different terminologies for aunts, uncles, and cousins that merge and separate various kin types, and why many logically possible terminologies are rare or nonexistent. The theory may help to narrow gaps between cognitive-linguistic accounts of kin terminology and sociological accounts, and between domain-specific and domain-general views of cognition. A companion paper discusses principles of kin classification and the evolutionary psychology of kinship.
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2003
Human kinship and associated terminology vary a lot across cultures, but many anthropologists hav... more Human kinship and associated terminology vary a lot across cultures, but many anthropologists have suspected that a common set of principles underlies this variation. I argue that cross-cultural variation in kin classification is produced by a generative psychology built on two broad classes of rules. Some rules declare that kin differing with respect to binary distinctive features should be distinguished from one another, others identify some types of kin as more psychologically basic or prototypical than others. Different kin terminologies draw from the same set of rules, while variation among terminologies in how kin are split and merged results from variation in the ranking assigned to different rules. The rules governing kin classification seem to derive from three universal ''primitives'' of social cognition-innate schemas of genealogical distance, social rank, and group membership. These schemas may be part of an evolved psychology of kinship. This psychology has homologies with nonhuman primate social cognition; in humans, it is adapted to flexibly regulate the representation of relatedness in the service of individual and group nepotism. A companion paper spells out in more detail how the psychology of kinship generates and constrains known systems of kin classification.
![Research paper thumbnail of Sexual Selection, Physical Attractiveness, and Facial Neoteny: Cross-cultural Evidence and Implications [and Comments and Reply]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/87445621/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Current Anthropology, 1995
Current Anthropology, 2000
The human aptitude for collective action may have implications for how the theory of kin selectio... more The human aptitude for collective action may have implications for how the theory of kin selection applies to human kinship. Several models show that if two or more individuals act collectively in assisting their mutual kin, their effective coefficient of relatedness can be greater than if each acts individually. Thus human beings may have psychological not only for individual nepotism but also for group nepotismadaptations leading them to construct solidary groups enforcing an ethic of unidirectional altruism toward kin. Human kinship systems have a number of features that seem especially consistent with group nepotism: (1) Human kin groups come in many sizes, ranging from families to clans, lineages, and tribes of thousands of people. (2) Human kinship commonly features an "axiom of amity," a presumption that kin are entitled to aid simply by virtue of being kin. But this kin altruism is often socially imposed, motivated less by affection between donors and recipients than by social pressure. (3) Relatedness as defined by human kinship systems often differs systematically from biological relatedness and varies with social structure-especially with the solidarity of the kin group. The theory of group nepotism may have implications for a of research areas in the social sciences. I conclude by focusing on two: demand sharing of food among subsistence hunters and the psychology of ethnocentrism.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010
The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with re... more The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with recent developments in linguistics and cognitive science. The response to comments reaches two broad conclusions. First, the theory may be relevant to several current areas of research, including (a) the nature and scope of the regular, “grammatical” side of language, (b) the organization of different domains of conceptual structure, including parallels across domains, their taxonomic distribution and implications for evolution, and (c) the influence of conceptual structure on social structure. Second, the theory compares favorably with alternatives, including (a) the theory that kin terminology is not really that complicated, (b) the theory that kin terms mirror social categories, (c) componential analysis, and (d) kinship algebra. If further research in anthropology, linguistics, and other fields supports the theory, and confirms the psychological reality of proposed mechanisms, then kin...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1996
Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may i... more Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may involve either selection for altruism or group selection between alternative evolutionarily stable states. The last variety of group selection is likely to have been particularly important in human evolution.
Kinship, 2022
In "Another view of Trobriand kin categories," Lounsbury analyzes Trobriand kin terms by providin... more In "Another view of Trobriand kin categories," Lounsbury analyzes Trobriand kin terms by providing a core genealogical definition for each term, and then showing how a set of reduction rules make it possible to supply terms for more distant relatives. In this article I revisit Lounsbury's analysis in the light of recent advances in linguistics and cognitive science. I show that Trobriand kin terms express a conventionalized tradeoff between expressing relevant information and avoiding complex expressions. Formally, I follow Optimality Theory in developing a constraint-based approach as an alternative to Lounsbury's derivational approach in which reduction rules are not just stipulated but derived. Kin terms are polysemous, with core and extended senses: a collection of markedness scales and a ranked set of distinctive features both (a) marshal core referents of kin terms and (b) select optimal, best-fit terms for kin types outside the core. Apart from its formal merits, this approach clarifies the connection between the Trobrianders's "Crow" kin terminology and their matrilineal institutions. It may also have implications for the "the Crow-Omaha problem"-the relationship between skewed and unskewed cross-parallel distinctions. Finally, the organization of kin terms may provide a window onto an evolved domain of conceptual structure. My discussion concludes with some thoughts on the relationship between kinship, genealogy, and biological relatedness.
PLOS ONE
Barbarism" is perhaps best understood as a recurring syndrome among peripheral societies in respo... more Barbarism" is perhaps best understood as a recurring syndrome among peripheral societies in response to the threats and opportunities presented by more developed neighbors. This article develops a mathematical model of barbarigenesis-the formation of "barbarian" societies adjacent to more complex societies-and its consequences, and applies the model to the case of Europe in the first millennium CE. A starting point is a game (developed by Hirshleifer) in which two players allocate their resources either to producing wealth or to fighting over wealth. The paradoxical result is that a richer and potentially more powerful player may lose out to a poorer player, because the opportunity cost of fighting is greater for the former. In a more elaborate spatial model with many players, the outcome is a wealthpower mismatch: central regions have comparatively more wealth than power, peripheral regions have comparatively more power than wealth. In a model of historical dynamics, a wealth-power mismatch generates a long-lasting decline in social complexity, sweeping from more to less developed regions, until wealth and power come to be more closely aligned. This article reviews how well this model fits the historical record of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Europe both quantitatively and qualitatively. The article also considers some of the history left out of the model, and why the model doesn't apply to the modern world.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010
The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with re... more The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with recent developments in linguistics and cognitive science. The response to comments reaches two broad conclusions. First, the theory may be relevant to several current areas of research, including (a) the nature and scope of the regular, “grammatical” side of language, (b) the organization of different domains of conceptual structure, including parallels across domains, their taxonomic distribution and implications for evolution, and (c) the influence of conceptual structure on social structure. Second, the theory compares favorably with alternatives, including (a) the theory that kin terminology is not really that complicated, (b) the theory that kin terms mirror social categories, (c) componential analysis, and (d) kinship algebra. If further research in anthropology, linguistics, and other fields supports the theory, and confirms the psychological reality of proposed mechanisms, then kin...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1996
Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may i... more Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may involve either selection for altruism or group selection between alternative evolutionarily stable states. The last variety of group selection is likely to have been particularly important in human evolution.
Annual Review of Anthropology, 1999
▪ Studying human behavior in the light of evolutionary theory involves studying the comparative... more ▪ Studying human behavior in the light of evolutionary theory involves studying the comparative evolutionary history of behaviors (phylogeny), the psychological machinery that generates them (mechanisms), and the adaptive value of that machinery in past reproductive competition (natural selection). To show the value of a phylogenetic perspective, I consider the ethology of emotional expression and the cladistics of primate social systems. For psychological mechanisms, I review evidence for a pan-human set of conceptual building blocks, including innate concepts of things, space, and time, of number, of logic, of natural history, and of “other minds” and social life, which can be combined to generate a vast array of culture-specific concepts. For natural selection, I discuss the sexual selection of sex differences and similarities, and the social selection of moral sentiments and group psychology.
American Journal of Human Biology, 1998
A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the arti... more A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the article author(s). All rights reserved. Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Corresponding author’s e-mail: harvey.whitehouse@anthro.ox.ac.uk Citation: Whitehouse, Harvey. 2013. Three Wishes for the World (with comment). Cliodynamics 4: 281–323. SOCIAL EVOLUTION FORUM Three Wishes for the World
A chronicle of the renaissance in kinship studies, these seventeen articles pay tribute to Per Ha... more A chronicle of the renaissance in kinship studies, these seventeen articles pay tribute to Per Hage, one of the founding fathers of the movement and long-time faculty member of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah. With mathematician Frank Harary, Hage pioneered the use of graph theoretical models in anthropology, a systematic analysis of diverse cognitive, social, and cultural components that provides a common technical vocabulary for the entire field. Anthropological studies have benefited from quantitative evaluation, particularly kinship, which is newly appreciated for its application to all social sciences. The chapters of this book, some original works by the contributors and some unpublished Hage material, attest to the importance of the continual study of kinship.
https://www.amazon.com/Kinship-Language-Prehistory-Renaissance-Studies/dp/1607810050/
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2017
Ethnicity looks something like kinship on a larger scale. The same math can be used to measure ge... more Ethnicity looks something like kinship on a larger scale. The same math can be used to measure genetic similarity within ethnic/racial groups and relatedness within families. For example, members of the same continental race are about as related (r = 0.18-0.26) as half-siblings (r = 0.25). However (contrary to some claims) the theory of kin selection does not apply straightforwardly to ethnicity, because inclusive fitness calculations based on Hamilton's rule break down when there are complicated social interactions within groups, and/or groups are large and long-lasting. A more promising approach is a theory of ethnic group selection, a special case of cultural group selection. An elementary model shows that the genetic assimilation of a socially enforced cultural regime can promote group solidarity and lead to the regulation of recruitment to groups, and to altruism between groups, based on genetic similarityin short, to ethnic nepotism. Several lines of evidence, from historical population genetics and political psychology, are relevant here.
PloS one, 2016
Kin selection, which can lead organisms to behave altruistically to their genetic relatives, work... more Kin selection, which can lead organisms to behave altruistically to their genetic relatives, works differently when-as is often the case in human societies-altruism can be boosted by social pressure. Here I present a model of social norms enforced by indirect reciprocity. In the model there are many alternative stable allocations of rewards ("distributional norms"); a stable norm is stable in the sense that each player is best off following the norm if other players do the same. Stable norms vary widely in how equally they reward players with unequal abilities. In a population of mixed groups (some group members follow one norm, some follow another, and some compromise) with modest within-group coefficients of relatedness, selection within groups favors those who compromise, and selection between groups favors generous generalized reciprocity rather than balanced reciprocity. Thus evolved social norms can amplify kin altruism, giving rise to a uniquely human mode of kin-ba...
Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2009
Psychological research in the USA and elsewhere suggests that race is regarded as an underlying, ... more Psychological research in the USA and elsewhere suggests that race is regarded as an underlying, inherited “essential” trait, like membership in a biological species. Yet Brazil has often been regarded as very different from the USA: as a country in which racial variation is seen as more continuous than categorical, more a matter of appearance than descent. This study tests alternative theories of racial cognition in Bahia, Brazil. Data include racial classification of drawings and photographs, judgments of similarity – dissimilarity between racial categories, ideas about expected and possible race of offspring from inter-racial unions, heritability of racial and non-racial traits, and conservation of race through changes in appearance. The research demonstrates consensus over time in appearance-based classification, yet race is also thought of as an “essential” trait. However, racial essences can be mixed, with a person containing the hereditary potential of multiple races, so that...
Human Nature, 1993
The theory of sexual selection suggests several possible explanations for the development of stan... more The theory of sexual selection suggests several possible explanations for the development of standards of physical attractiveness in humans. Asymmetry and departures from average proportions may be markers of the breakdown of developmental stability. Supernormal traits may present age- and sex-typical features in exaggerated form. Evidence from social psychology suggests that both average proportions and (in females) "neotenous" facial traits are indeed more attractive. Using facial photographs from three populations (United States, Brazil, Paraguayan Indians), rated by members of the same three populations, plus Russians and Venezuelan Indians, we show that age, average features, and (in females) feminine/neotenous features all play a role in facial attractiveness.
Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 2011
This article integrates (1) research in the historical dynamics of state societies relating group... more This article integrates (1) research in the historical dynamics of state societies relating group solidarity and group expansion to cultural frontiers, (2) comparative research in anthropology relating matrilocality to a particular variety of internal politics and a particular form of warfare, and (3) interdisciplinary reconstructions of large-scale "demic expansions" and associated kinship systems in prehistory. The argument is that "metaethnic frontiers," where very different cultures clash, are centers for the formation of larger, more enduring, and more militarily effective groups. In small-scale non-state societies, the major path toward the formation of such groups is the establishment of cross-cutting ties among men. This often involves the adoption of matrilocal norms. The current distribution of matrilocality and matrilineality around the world may be partly a residue of major demic expansions in prehistory involving matrilocal tribes. This hypothesis is...
Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 1996
Everyday experience suggests that physical attractiveness is important in personal-and especially... more Everyday experience suggests that physical attractiveness is important in personal-and especially sexual-relationships. This impression is confirmed by a large body of social psychological research.' z2 Cross-cultural surveys and ethnographic accounts show that concern with the attractiveness of potential mates is also common in non-Western societiesand in tribal and peasant cultures3 However, social psychologists and anthropologists have often had a hard time explaining why attractiveness should count for so much, or why some features rather than others should seem particularly attractive. The theoretical difficulties in accounting for physical attraction are brought out in a Brazilian saying, "Beleza n2o p6e na mesa" ("Good looks don't put anything on the table"), which points to the absence of any evident practical advantage to choosing an attractive mate. Faced with these difficulties, a growing number of researchers in biology, psychology, and anthropology have turned to the modern theory of sexual selection, which has been highly successful in explaining nonhuman animals' attractions to traits of no direct ecological utility. In this article, I survey recent efforts to apply the theory of sexual selection to human physical attraction. Sexual selection occurs when some individuals have characteristics that lead them to succeed in mating and fertilization at the expense of others of their sex. Darwin, in On the Origin of Species4 and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,5 introduced the concept of sexual selection and argued that it had been important in shaping traits of no obvious value in the struggle for existence, like the antlers of the stag and the extravagant Doug Jones has carried out research comparing standards of physical attractiveness in the United States, Brazil, Paraguay, and Russia. He is the author of Sexual Selection, Physical Attractiveness and Facial Neoteny: Cross-Cultural Evidence and Implications, published in Current Anthropology, and Physical Attractiveness and the Theory of Sexual Selection: Results from Five Populations, published by the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology. His future research will focus on the life-history consequences of being attractive or unattractive.
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2003
Optimality Theory (OT), a new approach to rules of language, can be used to analyze variation and... more Optimality Theory (OT), a new approach to rules of language, can be used to analyze variation and universals in kin classification. According to the theory, rules of language take the form of ranked constraints that filter random variation; grammatical differences between languages reflect different constraint rankings. Applied to kin terminology, OT provides an elegant account of how universal schemas of sociality generate different terminologies for aunts, uncles, and cousins that merge and separate various kin types, and why many logically possible terminologies are rare or nonexistent. The theory may help to narrow gaps between cognitive-linguistic accounts of kin terminology and sociological accounts, and between domain-specific and domain-general views of cognition. A companion paper discusses principles of kin classification and the evolutionary psychology of kinship.
Evolution and Human Behavior, 2003
Human kinship and associated terminology vary a lot across cultures, but many anthropologists hav... more Human kinship and associated terminology vary a lot across cultures, but many anthropologists have suspected that a common set of principles underlies this variation. I argue that cross-cultural variation in kin classification is produced by a generative psychology built on two broad classes of rules. Some rules declare that kin differing with respect to binary distinctive features should be distinguished from one another, others identify some types of kin as more psychologically basic or prototypical than others. Different kin terminologies draw from the same set of rules, while variation among terminologies in how kin are split and merged results from variation in the ranking assigned to different rules. The rules governing kin classification seem to derive from three universal ''primitives'' of social cognition-innate schemas of genealogical distance, social rank, and group membership. These schemas may be part of an evolved psychology of kinship. This psychology has homologies with nonhuman primate social cognition; in humans, it is adapted to flexibly regulate the representation of relatedness in the service of individual and group nepotism. A companion paper spells out in more detail how the psychology of kinship generates and constrains known systems of kin classification.
Current Anthropology, 1995
Current Anthropology, 2000
The human aptitude for collective action may have implications for how the theory of kin selectio... more The human aptitude for collective action may have implications for how the theory of kin selection applies to human kinship. Several models show that if two or more individuals act collectively in assisting their mutual kin, their effective coefficient of relatedness can be greater than if each acts individually. Thus human beings may have psychological not only for individual nepotism but also for group nepotismadaptations leading them to construct solidary groups enforcing an ethic of unidirectional altruism toward kin. Human kinship systems have a number of features that seem especially consistent with group nepotism: (1) Human kin groups come in many sizes, ranging from families to clans, lineages, and tribes of thousands of people. (2) Human kinship commonly features an "axiom of amity," a presumption that kin are entitled to aid simply by virtue of being kin. But this kin altruism is often socially imposed, motivated less by affection between donors and recipients than by social pressure. (3) Relatedness as defined by human kinship systems often differs systematically from biological relatedness and varies with social structure-especially with the solidarity of the kin group. The theory of group nepotism may have implications for a of research areas in the social sciences. I conclude by focusing on two: demand sharing of food among subsistence hunters and the psychology of ethnocentrism.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2010
The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with re... more The target article proposes a theory uniting the anthropological study of kin terminology with recent developments in linguistics and cognitive science. The response to comments reaches two broad conclusions. First, the theory may be relevant to several current areas of research, including (a) the nature and scope of the regular, “grammatical” side of language, (b) the organization of different domains of conceptual structure, including parallels across domains, their taxonomic distribution and implications for evolution, and (c) the influence of conceptual structure on social structure. Second, the theory compares favorably with alternatives, including (a) the theory that kin terminology is not really that complicated, (b) the theory that kin terms mirror social categories, (c) componential analysis, and (d) kinship algebra. If further research in anthropology, linguistics, and other fields supports the theory, and confirms the psychological reality of proposed mechanisms, then kin...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1996
Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may i... more Group selection may be defined either broadly or narrowly. Narrowly defined group selection may involve either selection for altruism or group selection between alternative evolutionarily stable states. The last variety of group selection is likely to have been particularly important in human evolution.