The Role of Theory of Mind and Deontic Reasoning in the Evolution of Deception

Modern Darwinist perspective enables to deal with the study of several human phenomena, one of which is deception, that we define as a behaviour unfolded with the deliberate intention of producing or sustaining a state of ignorance or false belief in another person. Evolutionary Psychology, an emerging area inside Cognitive Science, represents a promising conceptual approach to the study of deception. According to it, knowledge on human mind can be improved by understanding the processes which, during evolution, shaped its architecture. This work traces back to the Evolutionary Psychology arguments (for a review see Cosmides & Tooby, 1987; Barkow, Cosmides & Tooby, 1992; Buss, 1995; 1999) and develops the hypothesis that deception is a behaviour underpinned by two psychological mechanisms that evolved in response to problems posed by group living: the theory of mind and deontic reasoning.

[1]  N. Humphrey.  The Social Function of Intellect , 1976 .

[2]  John Dupré,et al.  The Latest on the best : essays on evolution and optimality , 1987 .

[3]  R. D. Alexander,et al.  The evolution of social behavior , 1974 .

[4]  R. Byrne,et al.  Machiavellian intelligence : social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans , 1990 .

[5]  S. Baron-Cohen.  Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind , 1997 .

[6]  D. Cummins,et al.  Evidence of deontic reasoning in 3- and 4-year-old children , 1996, Memory & cognition.

[7]  C. Frith,et al.  Schizophrenia, symptomatology and social inference: Investigating “theory of mind” in people with schizophrenia , 1995, Schizophrenia Research.

[8]  A. Damasio.  Descartes' error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. avon books , 1994 .

[9]  D. Symons.  On the use and misuse of Darwinism in the study of human behavior. , 1992 .

[10]  L. Cosmides,et al.  The Adapted Mind , 1992 .

[11]  J. Diamond.  Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies , 1999 .

[12]  D. Buss,et al.  Evolutionary Psychology: A New Paradigm for Psychological Science , 1995 .

[13]  B. L. Boeuf,et al.  Male-male Competition and Reproductive Success in Elephant Seals , 1974 .

[14]  D. Buss.  Evolutionary Psychology -- The New Science of the Mind , 1998 .

[15]  U. Frith,et al.  Deception and sabotage in autistic, retarded and normal children. , 1992, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[16]  D. Povinelli,et al.  Theory of mind: evolutionary history of a cognitive specialization , 1995, Trends in Neurosciences.

[17]  J. Perner.  Understanding the Representational Mind , 1993 .

[18]  T H Ollendick,et al.  Role taking and social competence in autism and mental retardation , 1989, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[19]  A. Leslie.  Pretense and representation: The origins of "theory of mind." , 1987 .

[20]  D. Olson,et al.  Developing theories of mind , 1988 .

[21]  R. Hinde,et al.  Growing Points in Ethology , 1976 .

[22]  F. D. Waal.  Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes , 1982 .

[23]  H. Wimmer,et al.  Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception , 1983, Cognition.

[24]  D. Cummins.  Evidence for the Innateness of Deontic Reasoning , 1996 .

[25]  N. Takahata,et al.  Recent African origin of modern humans revealed by complete sequences of hominoid mitochondrial DNAs. , 1995, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[26]  R. Seyfarth,et al.  How Monkeys See the World , 1990 .

[27]  A. Damasio.  Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York (Grosset/Putnam) 1994. , 1994 .

[28]  ChrisD . Frith.  The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia , 1992 .

[29]  E. Bizzi,et al.  The Cognitive Neurosciences , 1996 .

[30]  John Tooby,et al.  From evolution to behavior: Evolutionary psychology as the missing link. , 1987 .

[31]  A. Harcourt,et al.  Alliances in contests and social intelligence. , 1988 .

[32]  S. Baron-Cohen,et al.  Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind” ? , 1985, Cognition.

[33]  H. Wellman.  The Child's Theory of Mind , 1990 .

[34]  F. Waal,et al.  Coalitions and alliances in humans and other animals , 1993 .

[35]  A. Jolly,et al.  Lemur Social Behavior and Primate Intelligence , 1966, Science.

[36]  Jared M. Diamond,et al.  Guns, germs and steel : how the inequalities of wealth and power among modern peoples were moulded by prehistory , 1997 .

[37]  L. Cosmides,et al.  The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture , 1992 .

[38]  L. Fedigan.  Dominance and reproductive success in primates , 1983 .

[39]  Denise Dellarosa Cummins,et al.  Dominance hierarchies and the evolution of human reasoning , 1996, Minds and Machines.

[40]  S. Baron-Cohen.  Out of sight or out of mind? Another look at deception in autism. , 1992, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.