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Social Development

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Enculturation; Social habit development; Socialization; Unfolding; Upbringing

Definition

Children develop their sociality according to propensities for cooperation and from their family and community experiences. In precivilized societies, social development occurs naturally as children learn the ways of the community through informal apprenticeship. In civilized societies, social development often involves “socialization,” as adults coercively teach children how to behave.

Introduction

We can contrast two basic forms of societies: civilized and pre- or un-civilized. Civilization has been around for about 10,000 years (about 1% of human genus history). Civilized societies are those that domesticate and control the lives of animals and plants to their own benefit, hoarding resources and constructing hierarchies to keep the social system of controlling resources in place. Civilized nations have been successful technologically but destructive of earth life and biocultural systems...

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Correspondence to Darcia Narvaez .

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Narvaez, D. (2018). Social Development. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2394-1

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