SOCI 1000U Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Intersubjectivity, Cortisol, Prefrontal Cortex
Document Summary
First homo sapiens appeared about 200,000 years ago. Groups slowly get bigger - humans seem to need to spend about 20% of their time grooming/preening. Releases oxytocin- the bonding or love hormone. There is unlikely a genetic cause for even mother/daughter bonds. 130,000 years ago some homo sapiens begin to talk (still some did not have language - a group in present-day israel for example- did not talk even. Most important part of their environment had become other humans. Need more efficient preening / grooming (connecting/oxytocin release)= communication. Communication and sociality are now our primary inherited needs: Even well-nourished human babies die without social interaction. Neurons die if they can"t communicate with other neurons. 50,000 years ago, the brain changed its wiring to better process complicated social information (natural selection in social environment) Cultural aspects of human society appear (music, theoretical/abstract thought, man-made beads used as currency, identity, social roles and rules, symbolic cave-art, thinking beyond the present, god?, afterlife?)