
Here, we extend previous proposals and suggest that what underlies human social evolution is selection for socially mediated emotional control and plasticity. The self-domestication hypothesis suggests that, like mammalian domesticates, humans have gone through a process of selection against aggression – a process that in the case of humans was self-induced.
3Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS), London School of Economics, London, United Kingdom. 2The Department of Communication, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. 1The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Dor Shilton 1*, Mati Breski 1, Daniel Dor 2 and Eva Jablonka 1,3