You may find "Consciousness and the Social Brain" by Michael S. A. Graziano quite interesting. It provides an evolutionary path of development for this phenomen

You may find "Consciousness and the Social Brain" by Michael S. A. Graziano quite interesting. It provides an evolutionary path of development for this phenomenon. In short: Consciousness is the "theory of mind"-"mechanisms" (which developed prob. first) targeted at the subject itself to gauge social interaction more precisely. Cheers