title: What does it take to become 'best friends'? Evolutionary changes in canine social competence.
abstract: The traditional and relatively narrow-focused research on ape-human comparisons has recently been significantly extended by investigations of different clades of animals, including the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Here, we provide a short overview of how the comparative investigation of canine social behaviour advances our understanding of the evolution of social skills and argue that a system-level approach to dog social cognition provides a broader view on the 'human-likeness' of canine social competence. We introduce the concept of evolutionary social competence as a collateral notion of developmental social competence. We argue that such an extended perspective on social competence provides a useful tool for conceptualising wolf-dog differences in socio-cognitive functioning, as well as for considering specific social skills not in isolation, but as a part of a system.
authors: Department of Ethology, Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary. amiklosi62@gmail.com
authors: Adám
authors: A
authors: Miklósi
authors: József
authors: J
authors: Topál
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003657:Decision Making; D004285:Dogs; D006801:Humans; D016743:Mental Competency / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior