The Behavioral and brain sciences, Volume 46, 17 3 2023, Pages e5 Putting the cart before the horse? The origin of information donation. Burkart JM, Sehner S, Brügger RK, Adriaense JEC, van Schaik CP
Heintz & Scott-Phillips propose that the partner choice ecology of our ancestors required Gricean cognitive pragmatics for reputation management, which caused a tendency toward showing and expecting prosociality that subsequently scaffolded language evolution. Here, we suggest a cognitively leaner explanation that is more consistent with comparative data and posits that prosociality and eventually language evolved along with cooperative breeding.
