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human socio-cognitive niche
Also known as: human socio-cognitive niche, socio-cognitive niche
Facts (17)
Sources
Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution frontiersin.org 17 facts
claimHominin entry into the socio-cognitive niche is explained by positive feedback loops among various aspects of hominin life rather than a single causal factor or critical adaptive breakthrough.
referenceThe socio-cognitive niche is defined as being simultaneously a selection pressure and an adaptive response, according to Downey and Lende (2012).
claimThe authors of 'Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution' hypothesize that psychedelic instrumentalization had niche-constructing effects that aided in the creation and evolution of the socio-cognitive niche.
claimThe human socio-cognitive niche acts as both a selection pressure and an adaptive response, having been constructed and reshaped by hominins who modified the evolutionary pressures acting on themselves and their descendants.
claimIt is currently unclear whether psychedelic use was established early in hominin life (potentially explaining the evolution of the socio-cognitive niche) or emerged later in human life (potentially enhancing cognition and sociality coincidentally).
claimPsilocybin ingestion could have provided homeostatic utility to human ancestors by acting as a treatment for 5-HT (serotonin) depletion, which was a recurrent adaptive problem during the advancement into a socio-cognitive niche.
referenceA. Whiten and D. Erdal's 2012 paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B examines the human socio-cognitive niche and its evolutionary origins.
claimPsychedelic instrumentalization acted as an enabling factor in the development of the human socio-cognitive niche by mediating the expansion of ritual alterations of consciousness, healing, social bonding, and decision-making activities, which accelerated the spread of biological components of sociality, cognition, and communication skills in the human lineage.
claimThe psychedelic instrumentalization model proposes that psilocybin consumption by ancient humans had niche-constructing effects that imposed a systematic bias toward a socio-cognitive niche across the human evolutionary trajectory.
claimThe integration of psilocybin into ancient diet, communal practice, and proto-religious activity may have enhanced the hominin response to the socio-cognitive niche, while simultaneously aiding in the creation of that niche.
referenceHominins partially constructed the socio-cognitive niche through their metabolism, activities, and choices, according to Laland et al. (2016).
claimFunctioning in the human socio-cognitive niche required intelligence, technological know-how, social learning, and the capacity for cooperation among non-kin, which was eventually mediated by language, according to Barrett et al. (2007) and Whiten and Erdal (2012).
claimEntry into the human socio-cognitive niche involved increasing cognition, sociality, communication, and social learning.
referenceThe emergence of distinctively human capabilities involved a pattern of socio-cognitive niche construction predicated on cumulative culture and neurological and behavioral plasticity, as noted by Iriki and Taoka (2012), Whiten and Erdal (2012), and Fuentes (2015).
claimPsychedelic instrumentalization can be modeled as an enabling factor in the hominization process, functioning as a socially learned and culturally evolved trait that assisted in constructing the socio-cognitive niche.
accountJR presented the idea of psychedelic instrumentalization in the socio-cognitive niche in a manuscript sent to MW, and both authors contributed to all aspects of the final manuscript.
claimThe construction of the socio-cognitive niche in ancestral human populations involved the expansion of informal religious activities or 'wild traditions' that featured leaders with supernatural qualities, such as shamans, who ritually induced altered states of consciousness to provide healing and divination services.