We study emergent social phenomena and the causes of violence and warfare. Much as sub-cellular processes can give rise to emergent structures and complex behavior, humans also produce emergent phenomena unintentionally, such as the structured villages seen in the satellite imagery above. We focus on how biological and psychological mechanisms interact with social processes and physical constraints to shape human behavior. Our major questions concern collective behavior, social institutions, and the origins of violence and warfare.
We prioritize understanding behavior in its real-world context. Thus we rely heavily on naturalistic field studies and maintain a long-term fieldsite among traditional populations in southwest Ethiopia.
Recent News
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The emergence of locally adaptive institutions published in Biosystems.
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Music as a Coevolved System for Social Bonding accepted to Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
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Our paper Universality and Diversity in Human Song published in Science. Media coverage: Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine.
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Making pastoralists count: geospatial methods in the surveillance of a nomadic population published in American Journal of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine.
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Luke Glowacki awarded the 2019 New Investigator Award for the European Human Behavior and Evolution Association.
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Our article Spoils Division Rules Shape Aggression Between Natural Groups published in Nature Human Behaviour.
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The New York Times, The Economist, and The Atlantic cover our paper in Current Biology.
Contact Us
Mailing Address
Department of Anthropology
Pennsylvania State University
420 Carpenter Building
University Park, PA 16802
USA.
Glowacki 'at' psu 'dot' edu
Glowacki 'at' fas 'dot' harvard 'dot' edu