Human Cultures Through the Scientific Lens : : Essays in Evolutionary Cognitive Anthropology.

• Author: Boyer, Pascal.
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, UK : : Open Book Publishers,, 2021.; ©2021.
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (292 pages)

This volume brings together a collection of seven articles previously published by the author, with a new introduction reframing the articles in the context of past and present questions in anthropology, psychology and human evolution. It promotes the perspective of 'integrated' social science, in which social science questions are addressed in a deliberately eclectic manner, combining results and models from evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, economics, anthropology and history. It thus constitutes a welcome contribution to a gradually emerging approach to social science based on E. O. Wilson's concept of 'consilience'.

Table of Contents

Intro -- The Naturalness of (Many) Social Institutions: Evolved Cognition as their Foundation 15 -- Why Ritualized Behavior? Precaution Systems and Action Parsing in Developmental, Pathological and Cultural Rituals 53 -- Safety, Threat, and Stress in Intergroup Relations: A Coalitional Index Model 117 -- Folk-Economic Beliefs: An Evolutionary Cogniti­­ve Model 159 -- 1. Anthropology, Useful and Scientific: An Introduction -- 2. Institutions and Human Nature -- The Naturalness of (Many) Social Institutions: Evolved Cognition as their Foundation -- 3. Why Ritualized Behavior? -- Why Ritualized Behavior? Precaution Systems and Action Parsing in Developmental, Pathological and Cultural Rituals -- 4. Social Groups and Adapted Minds -- Safety, Threat, and Stress in Intergroup Relations: A Coalitional Index Model -- 5. How People Think about the Economy -- Folk-Economic Beliefs: An Evolutionary Cogniti­­ve Model -- 6. Detecting Mental Disorder -- Intuitive Expectations and the Detection of Mental Disorder: A Cognitive Background to Folk-Psychiatries -- 7. The Ideal of Integrated Social Science -- Modes of Scholarship in the Study of Culture -- List of Tables and Illustrations.