ABSTRACT
M ost behavioral scientists today accept the basic premise that human beings are adapted for group living. Even a cursory review of the physical endowments of our species—weak, hairless, and extended infancy— makes it clear that we are not suited for survival as lone individuals, or even as small family units. Many of the evolved characteristics that have permitted humans to adapt to a wide range of physical environments, such as omnivorousness and toolmaking, create dependence on collective knowledge and cooperative information sharing. As a consequence, human beings are characterized by obligatory interdependence (Caporael & Brewer, 1995), and our evolutionary history is a story of coevolution of genetic endowment, social structure, and culture (Boyd & Richerson, 1985; Caporael, 2001a; Fiske, 2000; Janicki, 1998; Li, 2003).
