The development of identification with conspecifics has probably been a key event in the evolution of primate self-consciousness.

This allows us to consider that identifications with suffering or endangered conspecifics have produced a huge anxiety increase associated to the emergence of self-consciousness in evolution.

The processes developed to limit that anxiety may have positioned anxiety management as a basic contributor to an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness.

These processes (now mostly unconscious) drive many of our mental states. Investigating their content could open a path to some understanding of human motivations.

The attached Neurex 2018 Workshop poster presents that subject.