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What makes social abilities sophisticated? Not recursive mentalising

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2025

Ian A. Apperly Open the ORCID record for Ian A. Apperly [Opens in a new window]
Ian A. Apperly*
Affiliation:
Centre for Developmental Science, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK i.a.apperly@bham.ac.uk https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/psychology/apperly-ian
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

To explain human social sophistication, and proximal phylogenetic steps leading to it, Dunbar claims that mentalising expands to increasingly high levels of recursion. However, the evidential basis for this claim is weak, exposing both a limitation in Dunbar’s account and in the field’s current understanding of social sophistication.

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Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e164
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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