The ontogeny and phylogeny of human cooperative problemsolving and social preferences in cooperative contexts.

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My proposed PhD will explore human cooperative problem-solvingin both evolutionary and developmental contexts. Using anexperimental paradigm never before used with children, butpopular amongst researchers of non-human animal cognition, I willexplore the relationship between social intelligence and problemsolvingability in the development of cooperative problem-solvingin children. I expect that children will be unable to solve the taskuntil both social and problem-solving skills have matured. I will alsoexplore the role and development of social biases in cooperativecontexts. A recent hypothesis suggests that such biases andpreferences should change throughout development as childrenwill go from being highly dependent upon their adult carers, toneeding to develop peer relationships that will aid survival in laterlife. I will test this using a partner-choice experiment with childrenbetween the ages of 2 and 6 years old, and an experiment thatevaluates concerns for reputations using different observers. Iexpect that young children should prefer to cooperate and bemore concerned for their reputation around adults, but that, aschildren develop, their concerns for cooperative partnership andreputation should switch to being more peer-oriented. Finally, Iwill explore human cooperative problem-solving abilities in anevolutionary context, testing two species of corvid (a bird familyknown for their high levels of intelligence) with vastly differentsocial structures, in the same task. This will help to clarify the roleof selective pressures on social cognition in the evolution of humancooperative problem-solving.