I have just moved to the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, where I am leading the undergraduate module in Psychology of Language and a new one in Cyberspychology (both in English).
In 2009 I completed my PhD, entitled "Young children's reporting of peers' behaviour". This is the phenomenon known as "tattling" in the US, or "telling tales" over here. I used a mix of participant observation and behavioral ecology to study tattling in two Belfast pre-schools. I also conducted experiments with children to see how well they recall various types of social and non-social information, and analyzed instances of tattling in the CHILDES and HRAF databases. My work is informed by an evolutionary perspective: I see tattling as an early example of an innovative human tendency to resolve disputes by bringing them into the public sphere, rather than by direct one-on-one confrontation. In this respect, tattling is similar to gossip in adults, but it tends to be more overt, more immediate and more negative.
Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to... more Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy—skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school‐related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children&#...
Gratitude as a character strength is linked with positive emotions and can potentially provide ma... more Gratitude as a character strength is linked with positive emotions and can potentially provide many benefits to children and adolescents. Yet little is known about how and why children typically experience gratitude, and how to promote its development. We conducted focus groups and written exercises with 38 Colombian fifth graders to explore different components of their gratitude experiences: namely, the benefactors, benefits, feelings and behaviors associated with gratitude. There were many commonalities in these components, with all main coding categories found in both girls’ and boys’ answers, and in both public and private schools. Particularities in gratitude experiences were more fine-grained and connected with everyday details of children’s family configuration and economic opportunities. One emergent category in the analysis was the degree of effort that children saw benefactors (particularly family members) as investing in them. These findings can be used to help inform ed...
Much research on moral judgment is centered on moral dilemmas in which deontological perspectives... more Much research on moral judgment is centered on moral dilemmas in which deontological perspectives (i.e., emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with utilitarian judgements (i.e., following the greater good defined through consequences). A central finding of this field Greene et al. showed that psychological and situational factors (e.g., the intent of the agent, or physical contact between the agent and the victim) play an important role in people’s use of deontological versus utilitarian considerations when making moral decisions. As their study was conducted with US samples, our knowledge is limited concerning the universality of this effect, in general, and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors of moral judgments, in particular. Here, we empirically test the universality of deontological and utilitarian judgments by replicating Greene et al.’s experiments on a large (N = X,XXX) and diverse (WEIRD and non-WEIRD) sample across ...
There is little evidence that children enjoy punishing transgressors or that they are primarily m... more There is little evidence that children enjoy punishing transgressors or that they are primarily motived to punish by retribution, as has been suggested for adults. Children’s approaches to compensation of victims have also been little studied. Here, British, Colombian and Italian 7- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) operated a Justice System in which they viewed different moral transgressions in Minecraft, a globally popular videogame, either face-to-face with an experimenter or over the internet. Children could respond to transgressions by punishing transgressors and compensating victims. The purpose of the system was framed in terms of retribution, deterrence, or compensation, between subjects. Measured were children’s punitive and compensatory tendencies, their enjoyment of punishment and compensation, and their endorsement of retribution vs. deterrence as punishment justifications, during and/or after justice administration. Children overwhelmingly endorsed deterrence over retri...
Contradictory findings with regard to the nonlinear relation between human likeness and affective... more Contradictory findings with regard to the nonlinear relation between human likeness and affective reactions have characterized psychological research on the uncanny valley hypothesis (Mori 1970/2005). In the present study we explored the phenomenology of the uncanny feeling (UF) by assessing implicit associations between uncanny stimuli (by android faces) and two emotional responses previously associated with the uncanny: fear and disgust. Further, we tested whether perception of uncanny stimuli would facilitate cognitions of deviant (“sick”) morality and mental illness, as suggested by previous literature. Across five Single-Target Implicit Association Tests we found support only for a slight association of the UF with moral disgust (relative to fear). We found no evidence of an implicit link between the UF and fear or general disgust, nor did the UF implicitly facilitate cognitions of psychopathy.
Adult humans are characterized by low rates of intra-group physical aggression. Since children te... more Adult humans are characterized by low rates of intra-group physical aggression. Since children tend to be more physically aggressive, an evolutionary developmental account shows promise for explaining how physical aggression is suppressed in adults. I argue that this is achieved partly through extended dominance hierarchies, based on indirect reciprocity and linguistic transmission of reputational information, mediated by indirectly aggressive competition. Reviewing the literature on indirect and related forms of aggression provides three pieces of evidence for the claim that evolutionarily old impulses towards physical aggression are socialized into indirect aggression in humans: (i) physical aggression falls in early childhood over the same age range at which indirect aggression increases; (ii) the same individuals engage in both direct and indirect aggression; and (iii) socially dominant individuals practice indirect aggression more frequently. Consideration of the developmental ...
In focusing on gender differences in anger expression, Trnka (2013) provides a useful complement ... more In focusing on gender differences in anger expression, Trnka (2013) provides a useful complement to the article by Ingram et al., (2012) analyzing gender differences in children's narratives about peer conflict. I agree that gender differences in anger are more likely to be the result of differential socialization processes regarding the expression of anger than by innate differences in the experience of anger. Gender differences in intersexual anger and aggression are likely to be affected by the social context, and especially whether a female is interacting with a romantic partner or an unknown male. The implication of socialization in anger expression raises the possibility that culture plays a causal role in encouraging cooperative breeding by inhibiting inter-female aggressive displays. Another of Trnka's proposals, that the expression of anger contributes to reconciliation and inhibits long-term relationship damage, is intuitively plausible and supported by the researc...
This article describes the use of evolutionary psychology to inform the design of a serious compu... more This article describes the use of evolutionary psychology to inform the design of a serious computer game aimed at improving 9–12-year-old children's conflict resolution skills. The design of the game will include dynamic narrative generation and emotional tagging, and there is a strong evolutionary rationale for the effect of both of these on conflict resolution. Gender differences will also be taken into consideration in designing the game. In interview research in schools in three countries (Greece, Portugal, and the UK) aimed at formalizing the game requirements, we found that gender differences varied in the extent to which they applied cross-culturally. Across the three countries, girls were less likely to talk about responding to conflict with physical aggression, talked more about feeling sad about conflict and about conflicts over friendship alliances, and talked less about conflicts in the context of sports or games. Predicted gender differences in anger and reconcilia...
Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) conceptualization of the unconscious is overly restrictive, comp... more Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) conceptualization of the unconscious is overly restrictive, compared to standard social psychological accounts. The dichotomy between distal and proximal cues is a weak point in their argument and does not circumvent the existence of unconscious influences on decision making. Evidence from moral and developmental psychology indicates that decision making results from a dynamic mixture of conscious and unconscious processes.
A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the arti... more A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the article author(s). All rights reserved. Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Corresponding author’s e-mail: harvey.whitehouse@anthro.ox.ac.uk Citation: Whitehouse, Harvey. 2013. Three Wishes for the World (with comment). Cliodynamics 4: 281–323. SOCIAL EVOLUTION FORUM Three Wishes for the World
Human characteristics: Evolutionary perspectives on the human mind, Nov 30, 2007
Language is a uniquely human behaviour, which has presented unique adaptive problems. Prominent a... more Language is a uniquely human behaviour, which has presented unique adaptive problems. Prominent among these is the transmission of information that may affect an individual's reputation. The possibility of punishment of those with a low reputation by absent third parties has created a selective pressure on human beings that is not shared by any other species. This has led to the evolution of unique cognitive structures that are capable of handling such a novel adaptive challenge. One of these, we argue, is the propositional ...
Learning environments must weave content and practice from different areas of expertise to achiev... more Learning environments must weave content and practice from different areas of expertise to achieve success in the end. In this paper, we describe the approach taken in the design of a serious game aimed at teaching children about conflict resolution. We address the issue of including users, both teachers and children, in the design process and the indispensable multidisciplinary effort to put together a tool that suits learners needs. The paper highlights the decisions throughout the design due to the different perspectives we wanted to incorporate in the game. These include research on conflict theory, user participatory research and game design. By reckoning that all the perspectives are equally important, we insure that in the end we will have a solid game which fine-tuned mechanics will support its serious purpose.
Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to... more Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy—skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school‐related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children&#...
Gratitude as a character strength is linked with positive emotions and can potentially provide ma... more Gratitude as a character strength is linked with positive emotions and can potentially provide many benefits to children and adolescents. Yet little is known about how and why children typically experience gratitude, and how to promote its development. We conducted focus groups and written exercises with 38 Colombian fifth graders to explore different components of their gratitude experiences: namely, the benefactors, benefits, feelings and behaviors associated with gratitude. There were many commonalities in these components, with all main coding categories found in both girls’ and boys’ answers, and in both public and private schools. Particularities in gratitude experiences were more fine-grained and connected with everyday details of children’s family configuration and economic opportunities. One emergent category in the analysis was the degree of effort that children saw benefactors (particularly family members) as investing in them. These findings can be used to help inform ed...
Much research on moral judgment is centered on moral dilemmas in which deontological perspectives... more Much research on moral judgment is centered on moral dilemmas in which deontological perspectives (i.e., emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with utilitarian judgements (i.e., following the greater good defined through consequences). A central finding of this field Greene et al. showed that psychological and situational factors (e.g., the intent of the agent, or physical contact between the agent and the victim) play an important role in people’s use of deontological versus utilitarian considerations when making moral decisions. As their study was conducted with US samples, our knowledge is limited concerning the universality of this effect, in general, and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors of moral judgments, in particular. Here, we empirically test the universality of deontological and utilitarian judgments by replicating Greene et al.’s experiments on a large (N = X,XXX) and diverse (WEIRD and non-WEIRD) sample across ...
There is little evidence that children enjoy punishing transgressors or that they are primarily m... more There is little evidence that children enjoy punishing transgressors or that they are primarily motived to punish by retribution, as has been suggested for adults. Children’s approaches to compensation of victims have also been little studied. Here, British, Colombian and Italian 7- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) operated a Justice System in which they viewed different moral transgressions in Minecraft, a globally popular videogame, either face-to-face with an experimenter or over the internet. Children could respond to transgressions by punishing transgressors and compensating victims. The purpose of the system was framed in terms of retribution, deterrence, or compensation, between subjects. Measured were children’s punitive and compensatory tendencies, their enjoyment of punishment and compensation, and their endorsement of retribution vs. deterrence as punishment justifications, during and/or after justice administration. Children overwhelmingly endorsed deterrence over retri...
Contradictory findings with regard to the nonlinear relation between human likeness and affective... more Contradictory findings with regard to the nonlinear relation between human likeness and affective reactions have characterized psychological research on the uncanny valley hypothesis (Mori 1970/2005). In the present study we explored the phenomenology of the uncanny feeling (UF) by assessing implicit associations between uncanny stimuli (by android faces) and two emotional responses previously associated with the uncanny: fear and disgust. Further, we tested whether perception of uncanny stimuli would facilitate cognitions of deviant (“sick”) morality and mental illness, as suggested by previous literature. Across five Single-Target Implicit Association Tests we found support only for a slight association of the UF with moral disgust (relative to fear). We found no evidence of an implicit link between the UF and fear or general disgust, nor did the UF implicitly facilitate cognitions of psychopathy.
Adult humans are characterized by low rates of intra-group physical aggression. Since children te... more Adult humans are characterized by low rates of intra-group physical aggression. Since children tend to be more physically aggressive, an evolutionary developmental account shows promise for explaining how physical aggression is suppressed in adults. I argue that this is achieved partly through extended dominance hierarchies, based on indirect reciprocity and linguistic transmission of reputational information, mediated by indirectly aggressive competition. Reviewing the literature on indirect and related forms of aggression provides three pieces of evidence for the claim that evolutionarily old impulses towards physical aggression are socialized into indirect aggression in humans: (i) physical aggression falls in early childhood over the same age range at which indirect aggression increases; (ii) the same individuals engage in both direct and indirect aggression; and (iii) socially dominant individuals practice indirect aggression more frequently. Consideration of the developmental ...
In focusing on gender differences in anger expression, Trnka (2013) provides a useful complement ... more In focusing on gender differences in anger expression, Trnka (2013) provides a useful complement to the article by Ingram et al., (2012) analyzing gender differences in children's narratives about peer conflict. I agree that gender differences in anger are more likely to be the result of differential socialization processes regarding the expression of anger than by innate differences in the experience of anger. Gender differences in intersexual anger and aggression are likely to be affected by the social context, and especially whether a female is interacting with a romantic partner or an unknown male. The implication of socialization in anger expression raises the possibility that culture plays a causal role in encouraging cooperative breeding by inhibiting inter-female aggressive displays. Another of Trnka's proposals, that the expression of anger contributes to reconciliation and inhibits long-term relationship damage, is intuitively plausible and supported by the researc...
This article describes the use of evolutionary psychology to inform the design of a serious compu... more This article describes the use of evolutionary psychology to inform the design of a serious computer game aimed at improving 9–12-year-old children's conflict resolution skills. The design of the game will include dynamic narrative generation and emotional tagging, and there is a strong evolutionary rationale for the effect of both of these on conflict resolution. Gender differences will also be taken into consideration in designing the game. In interview research in schools in three countries (Greece, Portugal, and the UK) aimed at formalizing the game requirements, we found that gender differences varied in the extent to which they applied cross-culturally. Across the three countries, girls were less likely to talk about responding to conflict with physical aggression, talked more about feeling sad about conflict and about conflicts over friendship alliances, and talked less about conflicts in the context of sports or games. Predicted gender differences in anger and reconcilia...
Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) conceptualization of the unconscious is overly restrictive, comp... more Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) conceptualization of the unconscious is overly restrictive, compared to standard social psychological accounts. The dichotomy between distal and proximal cues is a weak point in their argument and does not circumvent the existence of unconscious influences on decision making. Evidence from moral and developmental psychology indicates that decision making results from a dynamic mixture of conscious and unconscious processes.
A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the arti... more A special feature at the Social Evolution Forum Copyright Information: Copyright 2013 by the article author(s). All rights reserved. Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Corresponding author’s e-mail: harvey.whitehouse@anthro.ox.ac.uk Citation: Whitehouse, Harvey. 2013. Three Wishes for the World (with comment). Cliodynamics 4: 281–323. SOCIAL EVOLUTION FORUM Three Wishes for the World
Human characteristics: Evolutionary perspectives on the human mind, Nov 30, 2007
Language is a uniquely human behaviour, which has presented unique adaptive problems. Prominent a... more Language is a uniquely human behaviour, which has presented unique adaptive problems. Prominent among these is the transmission of information that may affect an individual's reputation. The possibility of punishment of those with a low reputation by absent third parties has created a selective pressure on human beings that is not shared by any other species. This has led to the evolution of unique cognitive structures that are capable of handling such a novel adaptive challenge. One of these, we argue, is the propositional ...
Learning environments must weave content and practice from different areas of expertise to achiev... more Learning environments must weave content and practice from different areas of expertise to achieve success in the end. In this paper, we describe the approach taken in the design of a serious game aimed at teaching children about conflict resolution. We address the issue of including users, both teachers and children, in the design process and the indispensable multidisciplinary effort to put together a tool that suits learners needs. The paper highlights the decisions throughout the design due to the different perspectives we wanted to incorporate in the game. These include research on conflict theory, user participatory research and game design. By reckoning that all the perspectives are equally important, we insure that in the end we will have a solid game which fine-tuned mechanics will support its serious purpose.
This review of the ontogeny of gossip and reputational understanding is divided into six sections... more This review of the ontogeny of gossip and reputational understanding is divided into six sections, based on six ontogenetic stages through which children and adolescents pass during development. The first five of these stages loosely correspond to Piaget’s classic stages of sensorimotor, pre-operational (pre-conceptual), pre-operational (intuitive), concrete-operational and formal-operational development. The final stage corresponds to the transition from adolescence to full adulthood. As has recently been argued (Burman, 2013; Ingram, 2013), Piaget’s stages represent the psychological effects of underlying biological changes in the developing individual, not all of which changes are unique to humans. It is thus possible to accept the utility of dividing children’s development into stages, without accepting all the details of Piaget’s theory, or regarding either the stages, or the ages at which stage transitions take place, as strictly invariant (cf. Lourenço, 2016). For each stage, I outline the characteristics of gossip production and reputational understanding in that age group. The overall intent is to provide a description of the cognitive ‘building blocks’ that have to be in place for the very socially sophisticated adult behaviour of gossip to be constructed. Finally, in the conclusion, I offer a tentative synthesis of the relationship between gossip and reputation through development. I argue that the ontogenies of these two phenomena are closely intertwined: changes in reputational understanding affect children’s linguistic accounts of third parties, including gossip; while their experiences of producing and consuming gossip enable the development of a more sophisticated understanding of reputation.
When individuals learn from what others tell them, the information is subject to transmission err... more When individuals learn from what others tell them, the information is subject to transmission error that does not arise in learning from direct experience. Yet evidence shows that humans consistently prefer this apparently more unreliable source of information. We examine the effect this preference has in cases where the information concerns a judgment on others’ behaviour and is used to establish cooperation in a society. We present a spatial model confirming that cooperation can be sustained by gossip containing a high degree of uncertainty. Accuracy alone does not predict the value of information in evolutionary terms; relevance, the impact of information on behavioural outcomes, must also be considered. We then show that once relevance is incorporated as a criterion, second-hand information can no longer be discounted on the basis of its poor fidelity alone. Finally we show that the relative importance of accuracy and relevance depends on factors of life history and demography.
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For each stage, I outline the characteristics of gossip production and reputational understanding in that age group. The overall intent is to provide a description of the cognitive ‘building blocks’ that have to be in place for the very socially sophisticated adult behaviour of gossip to be constructed. Finally, in the conclusion, I offer a tentative synthesis of the relationship between gossip and reputation through development. I argue that the ontogenies of these two phenomena are closely intertwined: changes in reputational understanding affect children’s linguistic accounts of third parties, including gossip; while their experiences of producing and consuming gossip enable the development of a more sophisticated understanding of reputation.