Evolution of Empathizing and Systemizing: Empathizing as an aspect of social intelligence, systemizing as an evolutionarily later consequence of economic specialization
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Bruce Charlton, Patrick Rosenkranz
The Winnower
unpublished
The first purpose of this paper is conceptual clarification. In other words, we first aim to clarify what an evolutionary theory of Empathizing and Systemizing needs to explain: we need to be clear what has evolved, before we can suggest why and how it may have evolved. Therefore we need to define the nature of both Empathizing (E) and Systemizing (S), and to emphasize that they are personality traits or 'dispositions' rather than cognitive abilities (see the section below for further
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... n of this distinction). We consider E as the disposition to apply 'theory of mind' (or social intelligence) reasoning to experience; while Systemizing is a disposition to apply nonsocial, abstract and systematic reasoning to experience. Therefore, E and S are distinctive modes of thinking -so that in an identical situation, an Empathizer would use one mode of thinking, while a Systemizer would use another -even if both had the same underlying cognitive abilities, their preferences or dispositions would be different. We argue that a theory of the evolution of Empathizing (E) and Systemizing (S) needs first to clarify that these are personality traits, as distinct from cognitive abilities. The theory should explain both the observed reciprocity of, and the sexual difference between, E and S in a context of the historical emergence of these traits and their balance in relation to local selection pressures. We suggest that the baseline state is that (since humans are social animals) ancestral human hunter gatherers are assumed to be relatively High Empathizers, lower in Systemizing: thus more interested in people than in things. Changes related to the development of agriculture and technology meant that it became economically useful for some men to become more interested in 'things' than in people, as a motivation for them to learn and practice skills that were vital to personal and (secondarily) social survival, reproduction and expansion. This selection pressure applied most strongly to men since in the sexual division of labour it was typically men's role to perform such tasks. We further hypothesize that High Systemizing men were rewarded for their socially vital work by increased resources and high status. Because marriages were arranged in traditional societies mainly by parental choice (and the role of parental choice was probably increased by agriculture), it is presumed that the most valued women, that is young and healthy women thereby having high reproductive potential, were differentially allocated to be wives of economically successful High Systemizers. Such unions of economically successful High Systemizing men with the most reproductively valuable women would be expected to lead to greater-than-average reproductive success, thereby amplifying the population representation of genes that cause high systematizing in the population. This hypothesis makes several testable predictions.
doi:10.15200/winn.146194.40165
fatcat:egfi5ph4lze6jg4f7mwiujvzfa