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Universal Aspects of Kinship

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Kinship universals; Panhuman manifestations of genealogical relationships

Definition

Behavioral aspects of kinship found in all human societies.

Introduction

Humans exhibit by far the most extensive and internally differentiated networks of kinship of all animal species. Correlatively the importance of kinship in regulating social life in humans is unequaled in the animal world. If this is not evident in modern state societies in which kin represent a small fraction of an individual’s social network, it is salient in small-scale societies, notably in groups of hunter-gatherers whose mode of subsistence characterized our ancestors over 99.5 % of the 2.5 million years of evolution of the genus Homo. If only for that reason, kinship is expected to have played a central role in shaping the social life and social cognition of hominins and hence to be deeply ingrained in human nature.

Unsurprisingly from that perspective, cultural anthropology was born with the scientific study of...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada

    Bernard Chapais

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  1. Bernard Chapais
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Correspondence to Bernard Chapais .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Chapais, B. (2016). Universal Aspects of Kinship. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1502-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1502-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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