Is Kinship a Schema? Moral Decisions and the Function of the Human Kin Naming System

Abstract

The human kinship system, and its associated terminology, bears the hallmarks of an evolutionary adaptation but its evolutionary origins have not been explored. We argue that the human kinship naming system is a schema that evolved to reduce the cognitive load of maintaining kinships, allowing the expansion of the human network and an increase in survival. We report on the results of two response time studies, using moral dilemmas as a proxy for relationship maintenance, which test the hypothesis. We find qualified support for our argument. Within the 50 layer of the social network kinships do impose less cognitive load than friendships allowing a saving in processing power and an increase in social network size beyond that seen in non-human primates. However, the result in the 150 layer is contrary to that posited by our hypothesis: kinships impose a greater load than friendships and this load is highest when refusing help to kin. We explore and discuss the influence on results within this outermost layer of the nature of response, the influence of the wider network and the temporal distance which exists between ego and alter at this level of the network.

Perceived group cohesion versus actual social structure: A study using social network analysis of egocentric Facebook networks

“…In line with previous research on the social processing of kin and non-kin groups (Brashears, 2013;Machin & Dunbar, 2016;Wlodarski & Dunbar, 2016), we found divergent effects for different group types: While non-kin groups were perceived as more cohesive when they were smaller, this was not the case for kin groups. This finding provides further support for the notion that kin groups are processed and perceived differently from non-kin groups.…”

“…The kinship label was shown to serve as a compression heuristic when recalling social network information, because it contains rich additional information on how people are connected to one another (Brashears, 2013). This is further supported by evidence showing that kin ties are processed faster than non-kin ties (Machin & Dunbar, 2016), and that kin ties are processed in other brain regions than non-kin ties (Wlodarski & Dunbar, 2016). To account for this, we ran additional analyses separating kin and non-kin groups.…”

A Mechanistic Model of Human Recall of Social Network Structure and Relationship Affect

“…Related research shows that memory for social networks is fundamentally different than memory for identically structured, but non-social, networks, demonstrating the need to study social memory in particular 15 , 16 . Compression heuristics have also been shown to influence moral dilemma decision time 17 , and are consistent with fMRI studies showing differential recruitment of brain regions in the processing of kin and non-kin social ties 18 . We build on this research by using a mechanistic model to investigate the algorithmic processes employed by the brain to recall social information.…”

The Ontogeny of Kinship Categorization

“…For instance, when and how does the concept BROTHER become part of a child's concept of UNCLE? Machin & Dunbar (2016) propose that kinship terminologies may have evolved to reduce the cognitive load of maintaining social relationships. If kinship terms are indeed a cognitive tool that helps us navigate our social world, what are the developmental processes by which children acquire this valuable linguistic knowledge?…”