Human has ape chassis

This was a post to Stanton Peele's blog in Psychology TodayThinking out loud (could be wrong, but these are my musings):

Man has an enlightened (or enlightenable) car body on an ape chassis.

The urge to form tribes is very strong -- it's an ape chassis characteristic. Once one sees themselves as part of a tribe, it's hard to go against the tribe. It is my supposition that this is, at least in part, an evolutionary adaptation. Those apes (or primates or hominids -- you get what I mean) who could live with a tribe-like, or team-like arrangement, survived and flourished.

My read has been that the pain of embarrassment or humiliation of being drummed out of the corps comes at least in part from the fear of death. Great psychoemotional pain upon separation from the group is a positive evolutionary adaptation. Those who don't feel much pain upon separation are more at risk for early death due to not having a support group. So embarrassment and humiliation is a way to make the fear of death more keen -- these are successful emotions, biologically speaking, it may well be.

Just my reflections on your post. Can't back them up with studies -- don't know the literature that well.

Thank you for a great blog.
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