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The human fear paradox turns out to be less paradoxical when global changes in human aggression and language evolution are considered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2023

Antonio Benítez-Burraco Open the ORCID record for Antonio Benítez-Burraco [Opens in a new window]  and
Ljiljana Progovac
Antonio Benítez-Burraco
Affiliation:
Department of Spanish, Linguistics, and Theory of Literature (Linguistics), Faculty of Philology, University of Seville, Seville 41004, Spain abenitez8@us.es http://antoniobenitez.wix.com/benitez-burraco
Ljiljana Progovac
Affiliation:
Department of English (Linguistics), College of Liberal Arts & Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA
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Abstract

Our commentary focuses on the interaction between Grossmann's fearful ape hypothesis (FAH) and the human self-domestication hypothesis (HSDH), also taking into account language acquisition and evolution. Although there is considerable overlap between the two hypotheses, there are also some discrepancies, and our goal is to consider the extent to which HSDH can explain the phenomena identified by FAH without invoking fearfulness as directly adaptive.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e55
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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