Mothers and Others
The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
Humans are the only ape that lets strangers hold the baby, and that oddity may be where empathy came from.
Hrdy asks why humans, alone among apes, hand their infants to other people. Chimpanzee mothers do not, and a chimpanzee that tried would risk the baby’s life. Her answer is cooperative breeding: human young survived because grandmothers, fathers, aunts and unrelated helpers fed and carried them, and infants who could read and charm those helpers did better. Mutual understanding, on this argument, is what shared childcare selected for.
Recommended by 1 Person
Alison Gopnik
This is another book by an anthropologist, although, rather than being a social anthropologist like Alma Gottlieb, Sarah Hrdy is a physical anthropologist who looks at different types of primates. So she is looking at human babies from the perspective of evolution.
Interview · August 2012
As an Amazon Associate, bookstoread.org earns from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon on this page may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Spotted an error on this page? Tell us and we will fix it.