CAN WE NEVER GET ALONG? MAYBE WE CAN.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 13, 2002

Does the human mind have an evolved cognitive specialization for reasoning about social exchange, including a subroutine for detecting cheaters? 

Neural and cross-cultural evidence that our minds contain evolved adaptations for reasoning about social exchange -- presented in two PNAS companion papers:
 
Selective Impairment of Reasoning About Social Exchange in a Patient with Bilateral Limbic System Damage (PNAS #3526) by Valerie Stone, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Neal Kroll, and Robert Knight
 
Cross-Cultural Evidence of Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange among the Shiwiar of Ecuadorian Amazonia (PNAS #3529) by Lawrence S. Sugiyama, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides

These PNAS papers provide surprising new evidence that our neural architecture has evolved specializations for reasoning about social exchange. That cheater detection can be impaired without impairing other reasoning abilities suggests that this cognitive competence is caused by a functionally isolable brain mechanism (#3526). That this brain mechanism reliably develops even in disparate cultural contexts suggests that it is a universal feature of human nature (#3529). Because social exchange allows trade, this evolved competence provides a cognitive foundation for human economic activity and other forms of cooperation.

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