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Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers pp 61–70Cite as

To Share or Not to Share? Social Processes of Learning to Share Food Among Hadza Hunter-Gatherer Children

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Part of the book series: Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series ((RNMH))

Abstract

The importance of food sharing is tacit in evolutionary models of life history, family formation, and altruism, yet the ontogeny of such behaviors is not well understood. Given that childhood is argued to be the time when other-regarding preferences and egalitarianism develop, it is critical to evaluate how the development of food sharing may influence prosociality. In this chapter, the social processes of learning to share food among Hadza hunter-gatherer children are explored. I combine naturalistic observations of food sharing, experimental data on other-regarding preferences, and ethnographic interview data to determine processes of cultural transmission. The results suggest that Hadza children routinely share food with both related and unrelated partners, although preferentially share with kin. They exhibit many processes of social learning, including observation, imitation, participation, reinforcement, play, and teaching. These data support recent suggestions that prosociality and egalitarianism develop strongly during middle childhood when children acquire the normative rules of their society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In all of my observations in over 10 years of data collection, I have only observed physical punishment by parents a handful of times (less than ten instances).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA

    Alyssa N. Crittenden

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  1. Alyssa N. Crittenden
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Correspondence to Alyssa N. Crittenden .

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  1. Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, Kobe Gakuin University, Kobe, Japan

    Hideaki Terashima

  2. Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA

    Barry S. Hewlett

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Crittenden, A.N. (2016). To Share or Not to Share? Social Processes of Learning to Share Food Among Hadza Hunter-Gatherer Children. In: Terashima, H., Hewlett, B.S. (eds) Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers. Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55997-9_5

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