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Andrew Whiten

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Andrew Whiten
FBA FSB FBPsS FRSE
Born
David Andrew Whiten

1948 (age 75–76)
Grimsby, England
NationalityBritish
Known forresearch in social cognition
TitleProfessor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology; Professor Wardlaw Emeritus at University of St Andrews in Scotland
Awards
  • 2001 Delwart International Scientific Prize
  • 2007 Rivers Memorial Medal
  • 2007 Osman Hill Medal
  • 2014 Sir James Black Medal
  • 2015 Senior Prize and Medal for Public Engagement
Academic background
Alma mater
Academic work
DisciplinePsychology
Sub-discipline
InstitutionsUniversity of St Andrews
Main interestsevolution of social cognition in human and non-human primates
WebsiteAndrew Whiten

David Andrew Whiten, known as Andrew Whiten (born 1948) is a British zoologist and psychologist, Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology, and Professor Wardlaw Emeritus at University of St Andrews in Scotland.[1][2] He is known for his research in social cognition, specifically on social learning, tradition and the evolution of culture, social Machiavellian intelligence, autism and imitation, as well as the behavioral ecology of sociality.[3] In 1996, Whiten and his colleagues invented an artificial fruit that allowed to study learning in apes and humans.[4][5]

Personal life and education

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Whiten was born in 1948 in Grimsby, England.[6] He graduated with a degree in zoology from the University of Sheffield and achieved a PhD in Psychology at the University of Bristol.[3]

Career

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Whiten started reading and lecturing at the University of St Andrews in 1970, joined the Department of Psychology in St Andrews in 1975, and became professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology in 1997.[1][3] Whiten was co-founder of the Scottish Primate Research Group.[3] In 2003, he founded the Centre for Social Learning and Cultural Evolution at the University of St Andrews.[1] He also was founder and first director of the primate research center Living Links to Human Evolution (short: Living Links) that opened 2008 in Edinburgh Zoo and draws more than 250,000 visitors per year.[2][7][3]

Research

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Whiten is a pioneer in the study of cultural evolution in chimpanzees and other primates, studying them for decades. He has demonstrated the existent of traditions in primate culture in areas such as foraging, tool use and courtship. He has also shown that it is possible to introduce new traditions, by teaching primates in different groups different methods for getting a treat from a box. The first two chimps taught others, who almost always learned the method used first in their group. In another study, vervet monkeys which had learned to avoid grains of corn of a particular color (flavored by a bitter taste) relearned their color preferences for food once they became part of another group with different preferences. Such transmission chain studies have shown cultural learning between individuals in at least 20 different species. The ability to learn from others is particularly important for adaptability under changing conditions such as climate change.[8]

Fellowships

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Whiten is member of the following learned societies:[9]

He was member of the Editorial Board of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, from 2008 to 2013.[10] He additionally chaired the Research Awards Committee of the British Academy from 2011 to 2013.[1][9]

Awards and honors

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Whiten was awarded the Delwart International Scientific Prize by the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium in 2001,[11] the Rivers Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), and the Osman Hill Medal of the Primate Society of Great Britain in 2007. He is the first and only scientist who was awarded both, the Sir James Black Medal (in 2014) and the Senior Prize and Medal for Public Engagement (in 2015) by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[1][12][13][9][14][15]

He was awarded an honorary doctor of the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh in 2015, of the University of Stirling in 2016, and of the University of Edinburgh in 2016/2017.[12][16][17][18]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Professor Andrew Whiten. britac.ac.uk
  2. ^ a b Professor Andrew Whiten has been awarded the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Senior Prize and Medal for Public Engagement Archived 8 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine. st-andrews.ac.uk, April 17, 2015
  3. ^ a b c d e Professor Andrew Whiten: Osman Hill Memorial Lecturer, 2010 Archived 7 May 2018 at the Wayback Machine. In: Primate Eye. Primate Society of Great Britain. No. 102. October 2010. p. 3-4
  4. ^ A. Whiten et al.: Imitative learning of artificial fruit processing in children (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), 1996. In: Journal of comparative psychology 110 (1), 3. doi:10.1037/0735-7036.110.1.3
  5. ^ Ludwig Huber: Social learning affects object exploration and manipulation in keas, Nestor notabilis. In: Animal Behaviour, 2001, 62, 945–954 doi:10.1006/anbe.2001.1822
  6. ^ Bruce Gilchrist: The descendants of Charles Gilchrist and Catherine Robinson: married in Boston, Lincolnshire, 1798. Gateway Press, 2004
  7. ^ Edinburgh becomes heart of monkey study business. The Guardian, November 9, 2004
  8. ^ Vernimmen, Tim (29 July 2022). "Cultural transmission makes animals flexible, but vulnerable". Knowable Magazine. doi:10.1146/knowable-072822-1. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  9. ^ a b c "Andrew Whiten". st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  10. ^ Andrew Whiten at royalsociety.org
  11. ^ News of Members[permanent dead link‍]. In: The Psychologist. Vol 15, No 2. February 2002
  12. ^ a b Andrew Whiten: Prizes. st-andrews.ac.uk
  13. ^ "Honorary Graduates". ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  14. ^ "Award". st-andrews.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 8 April 2017. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  15. ^ "Andrew Whiten". Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  16. ^ Heriot-Watt University Honorary Graduates since 1966. hw.ac.uk
  17. ^ Honorary Graduates of the University of Stirling - Emeritus Professor Andrew Whiten. stir.ac.uk
  18. ^ Honorary graduates 2016/17. ed.ac.uk

Selected works

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