Departmental Colloquium: Coralie Chevallier (Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives at the ENS Paris) - The costs and benefits of social motivation

Title:

The costs and benefits of social motivation

Prosociality is construed as a universal characteristic of human cognition. The intensity and diversity of human social activities are often cited as a unique feature in the animal realm. Yet, another important facet of prosociality is the huge variability with which it manifests. It varies across cultures, across development, across individuals. In this talk, I will try to address the question of the variability of prosociality by reviewing the costs and benefits with which it is associated. I will do so by taking the specific example of cooperation and the way it varies in ontogeny and across ecologies.