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The use of the term 'minds' in this chapter is based on research into the-
ory of mind and mindreading where people discuss whether and to what ex-
tent humans or other animals are able to reflect on their own mental states
(e.g. desires, intentions, beliefs) and those of others. Researchers have stud-
ied whether human intelligence is particularly specialized in mindreading
(Premack & Woodruff 1978; Povinelli & Preuss 1995). Minds are certainly at-
tributed to members of Homo sapiens (and, as some evidence suggests, several
other hominid species might have existed with minds) , but other candidates
exist among mammals (e.g. non-human apes, dolphins, elephants) and birds
(e.g. parrots and members of the crow family). Interestingly, species which we
describe as possessing a 'mind' are all highly social. Even the solitary life style
of Pongo pygmaeus or orangutans, (who nevertheless seem to be highly social
in their ability to recognize and interact with each other) is rather a secondary
adaptation to a particular environment which demands a spatially distributed
social organization.
The Social Intelligence Hypothesis (SIH), sometimes also called Machiavel-
lian Intelligence Hypothesis or Social Brain Hypothesis , suggests that the primate
brain and primate intelligence evolved in adaptation to the need to operate in
large groups where structure and cohesion of the group required a detailed un-
derstanding of group members. For important contributions to the SIH see,
e.g., Chance and Mead (1953); Jolly (1966); Humphrey (1976/1988); Brothers
(1990); and chapters in Byrne and Whiten (1988); Whiten and Byrne (1997).
This hypothesis does not exclude possibly important ecological variables that
might have provided initial demands and might have supported primate evo-
lution. However, it is assumed that social complexity that demanded the evolu-
tion of social skills (which allow the interpretation, prediction, and manipula-
tion of conspecifics) has been a prominent selective factor accelerating primate
brain evolution, given that maintaining a large brain is very costly. To give an
example, an adult human brain weighs about 2 % of the total body, but con-
sumes 20 % of total energy intake, (Aiello & Wheeler 1995). Identifying friends
and allies, predicting others' behavior, knowing how to form alliances, manip-
ulating group members, making war, love and peace, are important ingredients
of primate politics (de Waal 1982). In contrast to strepsirhine primates (lemurs
and lorises), monkeys and apes show a variety of sophisticated social behav-
ior: using alliances and cooperation in competition for resources, relying on
support by others when acquiring dominance ranks, putting considerable ef-
fort into building, reconciliation and maintenance of long-lasting and intensive
inter-personal social relationships, knowing personal characteristics and affili-
ations of group members and using techniques of social manipulation (Byrne
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