Abstract

The mindshaping hypothesis proposes a “de-intellectualized” explanation for human unique cooperation. In contrast to standard mindreading accounts, which emphasize the evolution of sophisticated reasoning about others’ propositional attitudes to explain how our ancestors became hyper cooperators, the hypothesis holds that sophisticated mindreading was a late-arriving product of our ancestors becoming better cooperators via the evolution of mechanisms that shape and regulate the minds of members of human groups to be suited to cooperation. Comparative research with nonhumans, especially our closest living relatives, the great apes, is of utmost importance for evaluating the mindshaping hypothesis—for instance, to what extent can apes maintain relatively complex forms of culture and cooperation without reasoning about propositional attitudes? The concept of mindshaping also opens up new questions in comparative cognition that are worth exploring in their own right, such as whether apes regulate each other’s behavior via social norms. This chapter assesses what we currently do and do not know about the nature and extent of various mindshaping mechanisms in nonhuman great apes, focusing on culture and social learning, pedagogy, and social norms.