An Evolutionary Outlook on Motivation: Implications for the Clinical Dialogue

Abstract

A taxonomy of basic motivational systems (reptilian, mammalian, and neo-mammalian), that emerged in phases during the course of millions of years, is proposed. These different phases did not replace each other, but became reorganized in the brain at different hierarchical levels. It is argued that (a) humans are an ultracooperative species and (b) high degrees of cooperation put strong selective pressures toward the development of sophisticated forms of intersubjective communication. These two developments had cascading effects on human evolution, creating both the conditions upon which humans were able to understand intentions, gestures, emotions, and, ultimately, the minds of others, and the emergence of language and symbolic forms of cultural evolution. Possible evolutionary steps that led to this ultracooperative survival strategy and some of their genetic mechanism, with special emphasis on a multilevel model of selection, are described, and the implications for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis are explored.

Notes

¹ To simplify, most evolutionary models assume equivalence between an allele (altruistic or selfish) and a corresponding behavioral trait. This deterministic view is, of course, incorrect. Any phenotypic expression of genes, such as a complex altruistic trait, requires the coordination of many genes that are turned off and on during development by epigenetic mechanisms. The simplistic model serves as an approximation and can be made more complex yet arrive at a similar conclusion. But sometimes this seemingly benign assumption can be very misleading and obscure possibilities for altruistic expression (see Sober & Wilson, 1998).

² A recent article on bonobos is beginning to modify the view of the social life of African apes, by showing that bonobos will share food with strangers as long as they are engaged socially with them (Tan & Hare, 2013).

³ The World Bank. Report on Gender Equality and Development (2012).

⁴ The full package showing the emergence of cultural and behavioral modernity consists in the presence of symbolic expressions such as abstract and realistic art, body decorations (threaded shell beads, teeth, ivory, ostrich shells, ochre, tattoo kits), systematically produced microlithic stone tools such as blades and burins, as well as grinding and pounding stone tools, functional and ritual bone, antler and ivory artifacts, evidence of improved hunting and trapping technology such as spear throwers, bows, boomerangs and nets, and last, but not least, the appearance of musical instruments in the form of bone pipes. The full package would have required that mankind’s nomadic ancestors were able to transfer raw materials over long distances (Powell, Shennan, & Thomas, 2009). The first evidence for cultural modernity in a less developed form appear in the tip of South Africa 77,000 BP (Balter, 2011), and later in Europe as full package 42,000 BP (Balter, 2012a).

⁵ Genetically based selection produces changes that move at a snail’s pace, compared to cultural selection that produces changes at lightening speed. Moreover, these two forms of evolution influence each other. The evolution of altruism in humans is a good example. Other examples of gene-cultural coevolution are probably abundant but, until recently, have not received much attention. One of the best known is the emergence of enzymes that metabolize lactose in cow’s milk, as milk became a basic staple in pastoral and horticultural societies in Europe during the early Holocene (12,000 to 5000 BP). A recent section in Science featured articles showing that genes that effect brain development are subject to ongoing selective pressures (Balter, 2005).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mauricio Cortina

Dr. Cortina is Director, Attachment and Human Developmental Center, Washington School of Psychiatry, Washington, D.C.; and Faculty, Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, Washington, D.C.

Giovanni Liotti

Dr. Liotti is a member of APC School of Psychotherapy, Rome, Italy.