Associate Professor
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287
Sarah.Mathew@asu.edu
Faculty Affiliate:
Institute of Human Origins Adaptation, Behavior, Culture and Society
Center for Evolution and Medicine Global Biosocial Complexity Initiative
I study the evolution of human ultra-sociality and the role of culture in enabling it. I am especially interested in how humans evolved the capacity to cooperate with millions of genetically unrelated individuals, and how this links to the origins of moral sentiments, prosocial behavior, norms, and large-scale warfare. To address these issues, I direct a theoretically-informed field research program among the Turkana, a subsistence pastoral society in Kenya who cooperate at a large scale, including in lethal interethnic raids, without formal centralized political institutions.
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287
Sarah.Mathew@asu.edu
Faculty Affiliate:
Institute of Human Origins Adaptation, Behavior, Culture and Society
Center for Evolution and Medicine Global Biosocial Complexity Initiative
I study the evolution of human ultra-sociality and the role of culture in enabling it. I am especially interested in how humans evolved the capacity to cooperate with millions of genetically unrelated individuals, and how this links to the origins of moral sentiments, prosocial behavior, norms, and large-scale warfare. To address these issues, I direct a theoretically-informed field research program among the Turkana, a subsistence pastoral society in Kenya who cooperate at a large scale, including in lethal interethnic raids, without formal centralized political institutions.
