Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language - Hardcover

Dunbar, Prof. Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674363345 ISBN 13: 9780674363342

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1997

Synopsis

What a big brain we have for all the small talk we make. It's an evolutionary riddle that at long last makes sense in this intriguing book about what gossip has done for our talkative species. Psychologist Robin Dunbar looks at gossip as an instrument of social order and cohesion--much like the endless grooming with which our primate cousins tend to their social relationships.

Apes and monkeys, humanity's closest kin, differ from other animals in the intensity of these relationships. All their grooming is not so much about hygiene as it is about cementing bonds, making friends, and influencing fellow primates. But for early humans, grooming as a way to social success posed a problem: given their large social groups of 150 or so, our earliest ancestors would have had to spend almost half their time grooming one another--an impossible burden. What Dunbar suggests--and his research, whether in the realm of primatology or in that of gossip, confirms--is that humans developed language to serve the same purpose, but far more efficiently. It seems there is nothing idle about chatter, which holds together a diverse, dynamic group--whether of hunter-gatherers, soldiers, or workmates.

Anthropologists have long assumed that language developed in relationships among males during activities such as hunting. Dunbar's original and extremely interesting studies suggest otherwise: that language in fact evolved in response to our need to keep up to date with friends and family. We needed conversation to stay in touch, and we still need it in ways that will not be satisfied by teleconferencing, email, or any other communication technology. As Dunbar shows, the impersonal world of cyberspace will not fulfill our primordial need for face-to-face contact.

From the nit-picking of chimpanzees to our chats at coffee break, from neuroscience to paleoanthropology, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language offers a provocative view of what makes us human, what holds us together, and what sets us apart.

About this title

About the Author

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool.

Reviews

Fascinating theories and cogent insights into why and how we use language, as learned from our simian relatives. Dunbar (The Trouble with Science, not reviewed) is a psychologist at the University of Liverpool, but his lucid Darwinian forays into the evolution of language draw widely on the fields of anatomy, linguistics, sociology, and anthropology. Monkeys spend up to 20 percent of their day grooming, and they are not just nit-picking: The activity allows them to communicate trust, form protective social alliances, and gossip, as it were, to keep track of who's monkeying around with whom. Using adaptation to environment as the evolutionary trigger, Dunbar shows how human language might have evolved to replace grooming when societies got too large to keep up with important information. Such gossip might warn a friend or relative about repeating a mistake or trusting the wrong clan members in a key social activity. And while humans don't depend on their hairdressers for protection from leopards, Dunbar points out that actual grooming and verbal ego-massaging release natural opiates that keep us high. While his primary focus is on humans, Dunbar weaves in a considerable (indeed, slightly excessive) amount of material about the linguistic abilities and social behavior of other species, including the vampire bat, the most loquacious sub-primate. While stressing the complex talents of our fellow primates, he concedes that ``if the apes have some form of science or religion, it cannot be very sophisticated.'' Dunbar concludes with a fascinating meditation on clan loyalty and the development of dialects and a variety of languages. An enjoyable romp through the past few hundred thousand years. Where else could you learn that it takes a village to grow a neocortex or that, to reproduce the best genes, women network and men advertise? -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

It may seem a stretch to connect the origin of speech with the grooming behavior of baboons, but Dunbar's research has persuaded him of such a link. This intriguing book presents his thesis, which he formulated after noting a relationship between maximum group size and the ratio of neocortical tissue to total brain volume. Dunbar then extrapolates to humans, proposing 150 as the upper range of people any one person can personally maintain relationships with via our equivalent of grooming: gossipy chitchat. He admits this will strike most readers as an absurdly low figure, but he argues the case, in evolutionary biological terms, in an elucidating and entertaining manner. How language began fascinates most of us, and consistently delightful are Dunbar's excursions into paleoanthropological anatomy, exigencies of nomadic living, philology of root languages, and the conversational styles at cocktail parties. A relaxed, concise presentation of an evolving theory of linguistic evolution. Gilbert Taylor

Dunbar (psychology, Univ. of Liverpool) has written a provocative book about the sociology of language use. He begins with a discussion of primate behavior, physiology, and Darwinian evolution. Then he shows the importance of the theory of mind and intentionality in discussing the difference between other species of primates and Homo sapiens. He disagrees with Piaget's ideas on human development and develops a different interpretation. He explains the beginning and uses of language as grooming and gossip, highlighted by the abilities and limits of language as part of human life. In the last chapter he gives some implications of his ideas for changing and understanding social dynamics. This fascinating study is recommended for language and psychology collections.?Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674363345
• ISBN 13: 9780674363342
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 242