Abstract
Multilevel selection concerns the evolutionary influence of group relative to individual adaptive pressures. It is being applied increasingly to human behavior, from development to economic dynamics. In the present chapter, I expand multilevel selection to five levels – (a) natural selection or individual fitness, (b) kin selection, (c) Group-for-Individual selection, (d) reciprocal altruism or selection, and (e) group (Individual-for-Group) selection. I speculate that the five levels of multilevel selection could have worked in concert to have helped evolve the five proposed Neo-Piagetian stages in human cognitive development – (a) reflexive, (b) sensorimotor, (c) perioperational (representational; preoperational and concrete operational), (d) abstract (formal), and (e) collective intelligence (postformal). The latter adult stage includes cognitive activities such as brainstorming at work, illustrating the adaptive advantages of behavioral products of group selection processes in human evolution.
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Young, G. (2011). Collective Intelligence and Multilevel Selection. In: Development and Causality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9422-6_32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9422-6_32
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