We’re sorry, something doesn't seem to be working properly.

Please try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, please contact support so we can address the problem.

Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Role of Assessor Teaching in Human Culture

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Biological Theory Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

According to the dual inheritance theory, cultural learning in our species is a biased and highly efficient process of transmitting cultural traits. Here we define a model of cultural learning where social learning is integrated as a complementary element that facilitates the discovery of a specific behavior by an apprentice, and not as a mechanism that works in opposition to individual learning. In that context, we propose that the emergence of the ability to approve or disapprove of offspring behavior, orienting their learning (a process we call assessor teaching), transformed primate social learning into a cultural transmission system, like that which characterizes our species. Assessor teaching facilitates the replication and/or reconstruction of behaviors that are difficult to imitate and helps to determine which behaviors should be imitated. We also explore the form in which assessor teaching has conditioned the evolution of our abilities to develop cultures in the hominin line, converting us into individuals equipped with what we call a suadens psychology. Our main point is to defend the hypothesis that suadens psychology determines the stability and dynamics that affect the trajectories of many cultural characters. We compare our proposal with other theories about cultural evolution, specifically with dual inheritance theory and cultural attraction theory.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Atran SA (2002) In gods we trust. The evolutionary landscape of religion. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrickman NL (2008) Evolutionary relationship between life history and brain growth in anthropoid primates. Duke Dissertations, Duke University, http://hdl.handle.net/10161/892

  • Boesch C (1991) Teaching in wild chimpanzees. Anim Behav 41(3):530–532

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boesch C (2003) Is culture a golden barrier between human and chimpanzee? Evol Anthropol 12(2):82–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boesch C (2012) Wild cultures: a comparison between chimpanzee and human cultures. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R (2017) A different kind of animal: how culture transformed our species. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson PJ (1985) Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago University Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson PJ (1996) Why culture is common but cultural evolution is rare? Proc Brit Acad 88:77–93

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd R, Richerson PJ (2009) Culture and the evolution of human cooperation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364(1533):3281–3288

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boyer P (2001) Religion explained. Evolutionary origins of religious thought. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyette AH, Hewlett (2017) Autonomy, equality, and teaching among aka foragers and ngandu farmers of the Congo basin. Hum Nat. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-017-9294-y

    Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Toro MA (2002) Cultural transmission and the capacity to approve or disapprove of offspring’s behaviour. J Memet 6(2):43–59

    Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Toro MA (2004) The evolution of culture: from primate social learning to human culture. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:10235–10240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Toro MA (2012) Imitation or innovation? Unselective mixed strategies can provide a better solution. Theor Biosci 131:273–279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Toro MA (2014) Cumulative cultural evolution: the role of teaching. J Theor Biol 347:74–83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Medina A, Toro MA (2004) Hominid cultural transmission and the evolution of language. Biol Philos 19:721–737

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Castro-Nogueira L, Castro-Nogueira MA, Toro MA (2010) Cultural transmission and social control of human behavior. Biol Philos 25:347–360

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castro L, Castro-Nogueira L, Castro-Nogueira MA (2016) ¿Quién teme a la naturaleza humana? Homo suadens y el bienestar en la cultura: biología evolutiva, metafísica y ciencias sociales. Tecnos, Madrid (Second edn)

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavalli Sforza LL, Feldman MW (1981) Cultural transmission and evolution: a quantitative approach. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Cialdine RB, Goldstein NJ (2004) Social influence: compliance and conformity. Annu Rev Psychol 55:591–621

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Claidière N, Sperber D (2007) The role of attraction in cultural evolution. J Cogn Cult 7:89–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Claidière N, Scott-Phillips TC, Sperber D (2014) How Darwinian is cultural evolution? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 369(1642):20130368

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Csibra G, Gergely G (2006) Social learning and social cognition: the case for pedagogy. In: Munakata Y, Johnson MH (eds) Processes of change in brain and cognitive development, attention and performance XXI. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 249–274

    Google Scholar 

  • De Waal F (2009) The age of empathy: nature’s lessons for a kinder society. Harmony Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dean LG, Kendal RL, Schapiro SJ, Thierry B, Laland KN (2012) Identification of the social and cognitive processes underlying human cumulative culture. Science 335:1114–1118

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edelman G (1989) The remembered present: a biological theory of consciousness. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehn M, Laland K (2012) Adaptive strategies for cumulative cultural learning. J Theor Biol 301:103–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enquist M, Ghirlanda S (2007) Evolution of social learning does not explain the origin of human cumulative culture. J Theor Biol 246:123–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fehr E, Fischbacher U (2004) Social norms and human cooperation. Trends Cogn Sci 8:185–190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fogarty L, Strimling P, Laland KN (2011) The evolution of teaching. Evolution 65:2760–2770

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foley R, Gamble C (2009) The ecology of social transitions in human evolution. Philos Trans R Soc B 364:3267–3279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galef BG (1992) The question of animal culture. Hum Nat 3:157–178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gärdenfors P (2017) Demonstration and pantomime in the evolution of teaching. Front Psychol 8(e10052):415

    Google Scholar 

  • Gärdenfors P, Högberg A (2017) The archaeology of teaching and the evolution of homo docens. Curr Anthropol 58(2):188–208

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gergely G, Csibra G (2011) Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 366:1149–1157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haidle MN (2010) Working-memory capacity and the evolution of modern cognitive potential: implications from animal and early human tool use. Curr Anthropol 51:S149–S166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harmand S, Lewis JE, Feibel CS, Lepre CJ, Prat S et al (2015) 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 521:310–315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J (2015) The secret of our success: how culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Boyd R (1998) The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence of between-group differences. Evol Hum Behav 19(4):215–241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich J, Gil-White FJ (2001) The evolution of prestige: freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evol Hum Behav 22(3):165–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett BS, Roulette CJ (2016) Teaching in hunter-gatherer infancy. R Soc Open Sci 3:150403. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heyes CM (1994) Social cognition in primates. In: Mackintosh NJ Handbook of perception and cognition. 281–305. Academic Press, New York

  • Heyes CM (2018) Cognitive gadgets: the cultural evolution of thinking. Belknap Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Heyes CM, Galef BG Jr (1996) Social learning in animals: the roots of culture. Academic Press, San Diego

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill RA, Dunbar RI (2003) Social network size in humans. Hum Nat 14:53–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hrdy SB (2009) Mothers and others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Inoue-Nakamura N, Matsuzawa T (1997) Development of stone tool use by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J Comp Psychol 111(2):159–173

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan H, Hill K, Lancaster J, Hurtado AM (2000) A theory of human life history evolution: diet, intelligence and longevity. Evol Anthropol 9(4):156–185

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kline MA (2015) How to learn about teaching: an evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals. Behav Brain Sci 38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14000090

  • Kraybill DB (1994) Introduction: the struggle to be separate. In: Kraybill DB, Olshan MA (eds) The Amish struggle with modernity. University Press of New England, Hanover, pp 1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Lave J, Wenger E (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mesoudi A (2011) Cultural evolution: how Darwinian theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan TJH, Uomini NT, Rendell LE, Chouinard-Thuly L, Street SE et al (2015) Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language. Nat Commun. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7029

    Google Scholar 

  • Morin O (2016) How traditions live and die. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Premack D (2004) Is language the key to human intelligence? Science 303(5656):318–320

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Premack D (2007) Human and animal cognition: continuity and discontinuity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104(35):13861–13867

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rapaport LG (2011) Progressive parenting behavior in wild golden lion tamarins. Behav Ecol 22(4):745–754. https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arr055

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rendell L, Boyd R, Cownden D, Enquist M, Eriksson K et al (2010) Why copy others? Insights from the social learning strategies tournament. Science 328(5975):208–213

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richerson PJ, Boyd R (1999) Complex societies: the evolutionary origins of a crude superorganism. Hum Nat 10(3):253–289

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richerson PJ, Boyd R (2005) Not by genes alone. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Richerson PJ, Henrich J (2012) Tribal social instincts and the cultural evolution of institutions to solve collective action problems. Cliodynamics 3:38–80

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott-Phillips T, Sperber D (2015) The mutual relevance of teaching and cultural attraction. Behav Brain Sci 38:44–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simon H (1990) A mechanism for social selection and successful altruism. Science 250:1665–1668

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sperber D (1996) Explaining culture: a naturalistic approach. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperber D, Claidière N (2008) Defining and explaining culture (comments on Richerson and Boyd, Not by genes alone). Biol Philos 23:283–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sperber D, Hirschfeld LA (2004) The cognitive foundations of cultural stability and diversity. Trends Cognit Sci 8(1):40–46

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sterelny K (2012) The evolved apprentice: How evolution made humans unique. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Strauss S, Ziv M (2012) Teaching is a natural cognitive ability for humans. Mind Brain Education 6(4):186–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamarit I, Cuesta JA, Dunbar RIM, Sánchez A (2018) Cognitive resource allocation determines the organization of personal networks. PNAS 115(33):8316–8321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tehrani JJ, Riede F (2008) Towards an archaeology of pedagogy: learning, teaching and the generation of material culture traditions. World Archaeol 40:316–331

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tennie C, Call J, Tomasello M (2009) Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364:2405–2415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tennie C, Premo LS, Braun DR, McPherron SP (2017) Early stone tools and cultural transmission: resetting the null hypothesis. Curr Anthropol 58:652–672

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (1999) The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (2014) A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M (2016) A natural history of human morality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Call J (1997) Primate cognition. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Kruger AC, Ratner HH (1993) Cultural learning. Behav Brain Sci 16:495–552

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomasello M, Melis AP, Tennie C, Wyman E, Herrmann E (2012) Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation: the interdependence hypothesis. Curr Anthropol 53(6):673–692

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tooby J, Cosmides L (1992) The psychological foundations of culture. In: Barkow JH, Cosmides L, Tooby J (eds) The adapted mind. Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 19–136

    Google Scholar 

  • Waddington CH (1960) The ethical animal. Allen & Unwin, London

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Luis Castro-Nogueira, co-author of these ideas, in memoriam.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Asociado de Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain

    Laureano Castro

  2. IES Pablo Picasso, Consejería de Educación de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Ángel Castro-Nogueira

  3. Departamento de Producción Agraria, ETSIAAB-Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Morris Villarroel & Miguel Ángel Toro

Authors
  1. Laureano Castro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Miguel Ángel Castro-Nogueira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Morris Villarroel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Miguel Ángel Toro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laureano Castro.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Castro, L., Castro-Nogueira, M.Á., Villarroel, M. et al. The Role of Assessor Teaching in Human Culture. Biol Theory 14, 112–121 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-018-00314-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-018-00314-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation