Overview

According to conventional wisdom, our unique human intellect results from evolutionary pressures for skilled tool use and for communication to enhance co-operation. This book explores a quite different idea: that the driving force was social expertise, allowing subtle manipulation of others within the social group. The need to outwit one's clever colleagues then produces an evolutionary spiralling of `Machiavellian intelligence'. This book forms a complete and self-contained text on this topic, including the origins of the idea, a wealth of exciting applications in anthropology, psychology, and zoology, and a current evaluation of more traditional ideas --to what extent is Machiavellian intelligence complementary or alternative to them? With contributions by an international team of authors, the reader is brought to the frontiers of scientific work on the origin of human intellect.

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9780198521754

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Reviews

'A highly cohesive book that will serve as an excellent introduction to social intelligence.' Nature 'By adding a few connecting chapters of their own in which they set out the issues clearly, they have created a highly cohesive book that will serve as an excellent introduction to social intelligence.'Nature February 1989 '.. an exceptionally important collection, of papers.' The Psychologist `.. this book will surely become a standard point of departure for future work.' THES `This book will be read and appreciated for two reasons. The first is that it raises or enhances our intellectual curiosity both about the evolution of social knowledge and about how social knowledge itself evolves. By so doing, the authors compel us to adjust our thinking about evolution and behaviour. The second is that it presents a novel and engaging format that teaches the reader.' Contemporary Psychology USA

Unusually well organized, integrated, and edited, unlike so many haphazard collections of edited papers. The theoretical position is intriguing, and the evidence convincing....The papers are generally excellent. --American Scientist<br> In summary, the reader of Machiavellian Intelligence will find the book promising for generating new hypotheses and additional questions about the evolution of intelligence, phylogenetic differences in social intelligence, and sources of selection pressure for attentional manipulation such as deception, to mention just a few. These topics could be explored fruitfully using the book as a reader in an interdisciplinary seminar with graduate students from psychology, anthropology, and zoology and would surely provide for a lively and thoughtful exchange of ideas and opinions. Clearly the topic of primate social intelligence, enthusiastically launched by this collection of writings, offers much tinder for future research. --International Journal of Primatology<br>

Unusually well organized, integrated, and edited, unlike so many haphazard collections of edited papers. The theoretical position is intriguing, and the evidence convincing....The papers are generally excellent. --American Scientist In summary, the reader of Machiavellian Intelligence will find the book promising for generating new hypotheses and additional questions about the evolution of intelligence, phylogenetic differences in social intelligence, and sources of selection pressure for attentional manipulation such as deception, to mention just a few. These topics could be explored fruitfully using the book as a reader in an interdisciplinary seminar with graduate students from psychology, anthropology, and zoology and would surely provide for a lively and thoughtful exchange of ideas and opinions. Clearly the topic of primate social intelligence, enthusiastically launched by this collection of writings, offers much tinder for future research. --International Journal of Primatology

`This book will be read and appreciated for two reasons. The first is that it raises or enhances our intellectual curiosity both about the evolution of social knowledge and about how social knowledge itself evolves. By so doing, the authors compel us to adjust our thinking about evolution and behaviour. The second is that it presents a novel and engaging format that teaches the reader.' Contemporary Psychology USA `.. this book will surely become a standard point of departure for future work.' THES '.. an exceptionally important collection, of papers.' The Psychologist 'By adding a few connecting chapters of their own in which they set out the issues clearly, they have created a highly cohesive book that will serve as an excellent introduction to social intelligence.'Nature February 1989 'A highly cohesive book that will serve as an excellent introduction to social intelligence.' Nature

'A highly cohesive book that will serve as an excellent introduction to social intelligence.' Nature 'By adding a few connecting chapters of their own in which they set out the issues clearly, they have created a highly cohesive book that will serve as an excellent introduction to social intelligence.'Nature February 1989 '.. an exceptionally important collection, of papers.' The Psychologist '.. this book will surely become a standard point of departure for future work.' THES 'This book will be read and appreciated for two reasons. The first is that it raises or enhances our intellectual curiosity both about the evolution of social knowledge and about how social knowledge itself evolves. By so doing, the authors compel us to adjust our thinking about evolution and behaviour. The second is that it presents a novel and engaging format that teaches the reader.' Contemporary Psychology USA

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