Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: Cooperation and Human Cognition Michael Tomasello Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology GERMANY Abstract: Great apes cognitively represent and reason (make inferences) about the world. Humans, in addition, represent the world propositionally and conceptually (perspectivally), and they reason about it recursively and reflec- tively. The Shared Intentionality Hypothesis posits that these uniquely human forms of cognitive representation and reasoning emerged evolutionarily as cognitive adaptations for dealing with a distinctive form of social life, specifically, one in which individuals had to coordinate their intentional states with others in cooperative, and ultimately cul- tural, activities. Within these cooperative activities, early humans created shared realities (joint attention, common ground), which then enabled them to direct the attention and imagination of one another in relevant ways in acts of cooperative, and ultimately conventional, communication. Learning to cooperate and communicate within a cultural group during ontogeny creates uniquely human propositional-conceptual-reflective cognition.
Author: Michael Tomasello
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2575707630