Empirical challenges from the comparative and developmental literature to the Shared Intentionality Theory - a review of alternative data on recursive mind reading, prosociality, imitation and cumulative culture

Humans have an irresistible inclination to coordinate actions with others, leading to species-unique forms of cooperation. According to the highly influential Shared Intentionality Theory (SITh), human cooperation is made possible by shared intentionality (SI), typically defined as a suite of socio-cognitive and motivational traits for sharing psychological states with others, thereby enabling individuals to engage in joint action in the mutually aware pursuit of shared goals. SITh theorises that SI evolved as late as 400,000 years ago, when our ancestors (in particular, Homo heidelbergensis) turned to a kind of food procurement that obligatorily required joint coordinated action. SI is, thus, hypothesized to be absent in other extant species, including our closest genetic relatives, the nonhuman great apes ("apes"). According to SITh, ape psychology is exclusively driven by individualistic motivations, as opposed to human psychology which is uniquely driven by altruistic motivations. The evolutionary scenario proposed by SITh builds on a series of findings from socio-cognitive research with apes and human children, and on the assumption that abilities expressed early in human development are human universals, unlikely to have been shaped by socio-cultural influences. Drawing on the primatological and developmental literature, we provide a systematic - albeit selective - review of SITh-inconsistent findings concerning psychological and behavioural traits theorised to be constitutive of SI. The findings we review pertain to all three thematic clusters typically addressed in SITh: (i) recursive mind reading; (ii) prosociality; (iii) imitation and cumulative culture. We conclude that such alternative data undermine two core SITh claims: the late evolutionary emergence of SI and the radical divide between ape and human psychology. We also discuss several conceptual and methodological limitations that currently hamper reliable comparative research on SI, in particular those engendered by Western-centric biases in the social sciences, where an overreliance on Western samples has promoted the formulation of Western-centric conceptualisations, operationalisations and methodologies.

Merit Is Not Meritorious Everywhere: Fairness in First and Third Party Tasks among Kogi Children

Experimental research has studied the emergence of fairness criteria such as merit and equality at increasingly younger ages. How much does the recognition and practice of these principles depend on the influence of central aspects of Western educated and industrialized societies? In an attempt to answer these questions, this article provides evidence regarding the choices of children in the Kogi indigenous community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a traditional society living in the mountains of Northern Colombia that practices swidden agriculture, cattle-raising, and enjoys a special cultural status granted by the Colombian Constitution. Two groups of 6–7 and 10–11 year olds (N = 104) were tested on a modified dictator game and several scenarios from a resource distribution task including different fairness criteria. Our results point to the lack of focality of the idea of merit among Kogi children at these ages when deciding on third-party allocation tasks, even when the design prevented equal distribution.

Children's group identity is related to their assessment of fair and unfair advantages

Unfair advantages can be created either intentionally (e.g., cheating) or unintentionally (e.g., unintended benefit). Little is known regarding how children evaluate different types of advantages in situations where group identity and group membership are made salient. To investigate how children's group identity influences their evaluations and attribution of intentions in intergroup contexts, children were presented with three hypothetical advantages (unintentionally unfair, intentionally unfair, and fair) in a competitive context created by either an in-group member or an out-group member. Children (N = 120) were 4-6 years of age (n = 59; M_age = 5.29 years) and 7-10 years of age (n = 61; M_age = 8.34 years), including 64 girls and 56 boys. Participants were 67% European American, 18% African American, 11% Asian American, and 4% Hispanic. All participants were assigned to one of two teams in a contest in order to create an in-group/out-group manipulation prior to their evaluation of the actions. Out-group members viewed unintentional unfair and fair advantages as less acceptable than in-group members, but in-group and out-group members were equally negative in their assessment of an intentional transgression. When reasoning about unintentional and intentional unfair advantages, older children referenced the intentions of the advantage creator to justify their decisions more than younger children, whereas younger children reasoned about the impact of the behavior on their team more than older children. These novel findings shed light on developmental and social factors influencing children's understanding of fairness and intentionality in everyday contexts.

The Development of Theory of Mind and Positive and Negative Reciprocity in Preschool Children

This study examined the relation between the acquisition of false-beliefs theory of mind (ToM) and reciprocity in preschoolers. Preschool-aged children completed a task assessing the understanding of false beliefs, and played an Ultimatum Game (UG) with another child in a face-to-face setting. Negative reciprocity was assessed by examining the rejection of unfair offers made by another child in the UG, while positive reciprocity was assessed by examining allocations made by participants in a Dictator Game (DG) following the UG. The results indicated that children who had passed a task assessing first-order false beliefs were more likely to make generous offers in a DG following a fair offer made by their partner in a proceeding UG, but that false beliefs ToM was unrelated to the rejection of unfair offers in the UG.