Biological Bases of Human Social Behaviour

Exert from the preface: "Understanding human behavior involves problems infinitely more difficult than landing a man on the moon or unraveling the structure of complex molecules. The problems are also more important and more urgent. If we are to tackle them, we must use every source of evidence available to us. Studies of animals are one such source. Sometimes such studies are useful to the extent that animals resemble man, and sometimes they help just because animals are different and permit the study of issues in a simplified, isolated, or exaggerated form. They may assist us in understanding the behavior of man not only through factual comparison between animal and man but also by helping us to refine the categories and concepts used in the description and explanation of behavior and social structure. But the use of animals involves dangers: it is so easy to make rash generalizations, to slip from firm fact to flight of fancy, to select examples to fit preconceptions. Studies of animals must, therefore, be used circumspectly, and the limitations of their usefulness specified. In this book I have attempted to review some studies of non-human species which may help us to understand human social behaviour. In doing so I have selected for consideration topics to which the animal data seemed most clearly relevant. Thus I have concentrated on questions of causation and development, at the expense of those evolution and ecology. And, because their behavior is most likely to be relevant to our own, I have drawn most of the material from studies of non-human primates- though I have discussed data on other species when issues or principles could be better illustrated by doing so. This has involved the omission of many fascinating aspects of social behavior- for instance, I have hardly mentioned the social insects, and have included little material on lower vertebrates- but this seemed necessary if I were to pursue my chosen theme inadequate depth."