Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
Human Systems and Behavior Lab, Department of Anthropology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
Hum Nat. 2023 Sep;34(3):456-475. doi: 10.1007/s12110-023-09458-y. Epub 2023 Sep 6.
The evolutionary origins of deception and its functional role in our species is a major focus of research in the science of human origins. Several hypotheses have been proposed for its evolution, often packaged under either the Social Brain Hypothesis, which emphasizes the role that the evolution of our social systems may have played in scaffolding our cognitive traits, and the Foraging Brain Hypothesis, which emphasizes how changes in the human dietary niche were met with subsequent changes in cognition to facilitate foraging of difficult-to-acquire foods. Despite substantive overlap, these hypotheses are often presented as competing schools of thought, and there have been few explicitly proposed theoretical links unifying the two. Utilizing cross-cultural data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), we identify numerous (n = 357) examples of the application of deception toward prey across 145 cultures. By comparing similar behaviors in nonhuman animals that utilize a hunting strategy known as aggressive mimicry, we suggest a potential pathway through which the evolution of deception may have taken place. Rather than deception evolving as a tactic for deceiving conspecifics, we suggest social applications of deception in humans could have evolved from an original context of directing these behaviors toward prey. We discuss this framework with regard to the evolution of other mental traits, including language, Theory of Mind, and empathy.
欺骗的进化起源及其在人类物种中的功能作用是人类起源科学研究的主要焦点。对于欺骗的进化，已经提出了几种假说，这些假说通常分为社会脑假说和觅食脑假说，前者强调我们的社会系统的进化可能在构建我们的认知特征方面发挥了作用，后者强调人类饮食范围的变化如何伴随着认知的后续变化，以促进难以获得的食物的觅食。尽管有实质性的重叠，但这些假说经常被作为相互竞争的思想流派提出，很少有明确提出的理论联系将两者统一起来。利用人类关系区域档案（HRAF）收集的跨文化数据，我们在 145 种文化中发现了许多（n=357）将欺骗应用于猎物的例子。通过比较在使用称为攻击性模仿的狩猎策略的非人类动物中类似的行为，我们提出了欺骗进化可能发生的潜在途径。我们认为，欺骗不是作为欺骗同类的策略而进化的，而是人类对欺骗的社会应用可能是从最初将这些行为指向猎物的背景中进化而来的。我们将这个框架与其他心理特征的进化，包括语言、心理理论和同理心进行了讨论。
