Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-nqxm9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-15T18:52:01.818Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Psychological mechanisms for individual recognition- and anonymous-societies in humans and other animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2025

Christopher Krupenye Open the ORCID record for Christopher Krupenye [Opens in a new window] ,
Luz Carvajal  and
Amalia P. M. Bastos Open the ORCID record for Amalia P. M. Bastos [Opens in a new window]
Christopher Krupenye*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] social-cognitive-origins.com
Luz Carvajal
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] social-cognitive-origins.com
Amalia P. M. Bastos
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] social-cognitive-origins.com
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To understand the nature and evolution of different kinds of societies, we must characterize the psychological mechanisms members use to identify who belongs. Across both individual recognition- and anonymous-societies, these range from physiological responses to individuals up to powerful conceptual representations of the group that license generalization and novel predictions. Sketching these mechanisms helps us understand the transition from the individual recognition societies of our ape ancestors to uniquely human forms of anonymous society.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e65
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bovet, D., & Washburn, D. A. (2003). Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) categorize unknown conspecifics according to their dominance relations. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117(4), 400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carlson, N. V., Kelly, E. M., & Couzin, I. (2020). Individual vocal recognition across taxa: A review of the literature and a look into the future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 375(1802), 20190479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, S., Mathevon, N., Stevens, J. M., Guéry, J. P., Zuberbühler, K., & Levréro, F. (2016). Enduring voice recognition in bonobos. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 22046.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krupenye, C., Kano, F., Hirata, S., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2016). Great apes anticipate that other individuals will act according to false beliefs. Science, 354(6308), 110–114.Google ScholarPubMed
Lewis, L. S., Wessling, E. G., Kano, F., Stevens, J. M., Call, J., & Krupenye, C. (2023). Bonobos and chimpanzees remember familiar conspecifics for decades. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(52), e2304903120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paxton, R., Basile, B. M., Adachi, I., Suzuki, W. A., Wilson, M. E., & Hampton, R. R. (2010). Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) rapidly learn to select dominant individuals in videos of artificial social interactions between unfamiliar conspecifics. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 124(4), 395.Google ScholarPubMed
Penn, D. C., Holyoak, K. J., & Povinelli, D. J. (2008). Darwin's mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(2), 109–130.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peso, M., & Richards, M. H. (2010). Knowing who's who: Nestmate recognition in the facultatively social carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica. Animal Behaviour, 79(3), 563–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuni, L., Langergraber, K. E., & Surbeck, M. H. (2022). Characterization of Pan social systems reveals in-group/out-group distinction and out-group tolerance in bonobos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(26), e2201122119.Google ScholarPubMed
Tibbetts, E. A., & Dale, J. (2007). Individual recognition: It is good to be different. Trends in ecology & evolution, 22(10), 529–537.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsutsui, N. D. (2004). Scents of self: The expression component of self/non-self recognition systems. Annales zoologici fennici, 41, 713–727.Google Scholar
Westra, E., Fitzpatrick, S., Brosnan, S. F., Gruber, T., Hobaiter, C., Hopper, L. M., … Andrews, K. (2024). In search of animal normativity: A framework for studying social norms in non-human animals. Biological Reviews, 99, 1058–1074.Google ScholarPubMed
Whiten, A., Goodall, J., McGrew, W. C., Nishida, T., Reynolds, V., Sugiyama, Y., … Boesch, C. (1999). Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature, 399(6737), 682–685.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed