Michael Tomasello: Why We Cooperate

From the new book, Why We Cooperate, by Michael Tomasello, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany.

[T]here are two clearly observable characteristics of human culture that mark it as qualitatively unique. … The first is what has been called cumulative cultural evolution. Human artifacts and behavioral practices often become more complex of time (the have a ‘history’). ...

The second … is the creation of social institutions. Social institutions are sets of behavioral practices governed by various kinds of mutually recognized norms and rules. ...

Underlying these two singular characteristics of human culture – cumulative artifacts and social institutions – are sets of species-unique skills and motivations for cooperation. … [W]e may refer to the underlying psychological processes that make these unique forms of cooperation possible as ‘shared intentionality.’ ...

First, humans actively teach one another things, and they do not reserve their lessons for kin. … Second, humans also have a tendency to imitate others in the group simply in order to be like them, that is, to conform. …

In addition – and this will be a key complicating aspect of my account – I do not believe that human altruism is a single trait. … Felix Warneken, a fellow researcher at the Max Planck Institute, and I use an economic framework incorporating three main types of human altruism as defined by the ‘commodity’ involved: goods, services, and information. To be altruistic with respect to goods such as food is to be generous, to engage in sharing; to be altruistic with respect to services such as fetching an out-of-reach object for someone is to be helpful; and to share information and attitude altruistically with others (including gossip) is to be informative. ...

I do not believe altruism is the process primarily responsible for human cooperation. … The star is mutualism.

The NYT recently featured an article on Tomasello, "We May Be Born With an Urge to Help."

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