The (Cultural) Evolution of the Social Mind

An influential claim in recent evolutionary psychology is that the human mind is, at least in substantial part, a product of selection pressures for surviving in a social environment. This has given rise to a number of claims about the uniqueness of human forms of social cognition. In this talk I will argue that arguments for the social mind hypothesis have been influenced by philosophically dubious claims about the foundations of human social cognition. I will argue that uniquely human forms of social cognition are likely a product of cultural and not biological evolution, and that while the human mind is adapted for social cognition, the extent of this adaptation is less substantial than others have claimed.