PSYC 332 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Frontal Lobe, Social Status, Social Network

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 332
• Professor: Richard Koestner

Document Summary

Baboon metaphysics: the evolution of a social mind. Particular brain area that is enlarged (frontal cortex, complex thought and perception) Functional brain scans show that when we are thinking of people and relationship, frontal cortex is highly activated. Default activity (when we are in rest, not doing any tasks) of human brain is thinking about relationship. Processes and works with social information better than any other information. Other primates; brain size, frontal cortex and group size. Larger the group, more social information to analyze, and this requires larger frontal cortex. Prof"s daughter didn"t like going summer camp. When her friend asked whether sophie liked the camp, she overcame social challenge without lying by asking her friend how it was. Primates may be pushed into larger groups thanks to predator s or to patchy sources of food like fruit trees. As their numbers grow, natural selection may favor social intelligence.