Social Cognition and Behavioral Flexibility: Categorical Decision-Making as a Primate Signature

Abstract

Social cognition may be incorporated within the Triversian (Trivers, 1985) meaning of sociality whereby interindividual interactions are classified as selfish, cooperative, altruistic, or spiteful. Like all social behavior (Frank, 1998; Trivers, 1985), I assume that social cognition has evolved to optimize fitness where the (genetic and/or phenotypic) interests of individuals competing for limiting resources are not equivalent. These interests might be compromised, however, where cognitive responses have been manipulated or exploited so that individuals behave in the interests of others (e.g., as victims of social parasitism; see Frith and Frith, 1999; Whiten and Byrne, 1988; Chapter 3).