Inherited Psychology and History in Human Social Evolution

Harvey Whitehouse's 'Inheritance' explains who we are and who we could be.

Reviewed by Kaja Perina

Key points

• Losing the cultural scaffolding that allowed us to manage our biases, the world is spiraling out of control.
• By understanding our evolved psychology and collective history we can better address global challenges.

When I first of learned of renowned anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse's new book Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World I couldn't wait to read it. Now that I have, I'm thrilled he could take the time to answer a few questions about his highly acclaimed book in which he convincingly argues that we must draw on the lessons of history to manage our evolved psychology more creatively in the future. Whitehouse's views made me think about Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods' important work on how friendliness and cooperation are secrets of humans' success.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Inheritance?

Harvey Whitehouse: Three features of our evolved psychology have dogged humanity throughout our history: conformism, religiosity, and tribalism. It may seem that the human propensity to copy seemingly irrational behaviors, to bow down to capricious deities, and to hate people who are not members of their own tribes lie at the root of all our current problems and that our only hope is to overcome or eliminate these tendencies. I wrote this book to explain why that would never work.

Wherever you go in the world you’ll see that people have unique customs and rituals – forming into distinct cultural traditions. You’ll discover evidence of religious beliefs – for example that we live on after we die or that we should show respect to various kinds of supernatural beings. And you’ll find that people try to advance the interests of special groups they care about, for example their families, sports teams, ethnic groups, or countries. We cannot stamp out these features of our evolved psychology because they will simply resurface with each new generation. Instead, we must learn to harness them more effectively, building on the discoveries of past generations. If we do that, we can create a better future, not only for humanity but for all other forms of life that share the planet with us.

MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?

HW: As a young child I was always curious about people, not just nosy but curious about what made us tick. I’m not alone. When preschoolers first realize that their parents don’t know everything, it’s a source of great fascination. For example, it means you can tell fibs and get away with it. This led to a fascination with how we know what we know. In my case, it created a thirst for science and it’s what made me want to become an anthropologist.

I began my career as an anthropologist by going to live for two years deep in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea, with a tribe whose language had never been written down and who had no electricity or running water. But they had a very rich culture. They taught me how to follow their customs, they initiated me into their religion, and they made me a member of the tribe. And I’ve spent the rest of my career trying to understand why these three things are so important to us and how they affect humans everywhere. Over the past thirty years, I have collaborated extensively with many of the world’s most brilliant scientists to investigate the mysteries of the human mind in labs, field sites, and brain scanning machines. And I have spent many years collaborating with archaeologists and historians to unravel our unnatural history of civilization over the millennia.

MB: What are some of the major topics you consider?

HW: The first third of the book shows how human psychology evolved to support cooperation in small face-to-face communities. For example, my colleagues and I have shown in experiments that even preverbal infants expect beings with supernatural powers to exert dominance over ordinary mortals. We’ve discovered that preschoolers copy seemingly pointless behaviors more faithfully than materially useful ones. And we’ve revealed why people are willing to fight and die for each other in groups as diverse as military insurgents, religious fundamentalists, and football fans.

The second third of the book shows how these kinds of psychological biases have been managed, harnessed, and extended over the past ten thousand years of world history. Here, I draw on our quantitative analysis of data on hundreds of past societies in a diverse sample of world regions, revealing how our tendencies to copy, believe, and belong were harnessed and extended with the advent of farming, the rise of the first states, and the spread of the world’s most successful empires and moralizing religions. The final third of the book shows how previous methods of cooperation are now failing us with the result that we are now copying bad habits, worshipping anthropomorphic brands, and allowing destructive forms of tribalism to engulf us. Based on the latest scientific research, the book offers a raft of radical but achievable solutions.

MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about our evolutionary past they will become aware of who we are--our human natures--and how we got here--the "good" and the "not so good"?

HW: I’m very hopeful that as we come to understand human nature better and how our ancestors have harnessed its strengths and managed its limitations we can solve many contemporary problems. Some of the most important things we could do may come as a surprise. For example, you might think that rituals are a waste of time but that’s not true! What we eat and the clothes we buy are profoundly shaped by ritualistic thinking, whether we like it or not, so we really need to understand better the psychology of ritual and the effects of ritual routinization on our consumption habits worldwide.

I also argue we need to rethink the way democracy works, drawing much more on citizens’ assemblies which are rooted in more ancient forms of collective decision making. We could mobilize cohesion and cooperation in the world religions much more effectively to promote action on the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, based on scriptural support for stewardship of God’s creation. We could harness science to help us regulate social media and rethink what makes a story newsworthy. We also need new kinds of leadership to help us scale up cooperation and to create cohesion with humanity at large to address global problems. The central message of the book is that we can build on what we know about our evolved psychology and the discoveries of past civilizations to create a more peaceful and sustainable future for all of us.