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Not by the same token: A female orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is selectively prosocial. Primates 2019; 61:237-247. [PMID: 31813075 DOI: 10.1007/s10329-019-00780-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2019] [Accepted: 12/02/2019] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
Studies of prosocial behavior in nonhumans have focused on group-living social animals. Despite being highly social and closely related to humans, chimpanzees have rarely exhibited prosocial preferences in experimental tasks. Fewer studies have provided their non group-living relatives-orangutans-with the opportunity to express prosocial preferences. Here, we allowed a single female orangutan to provide rewards for herself and for her mother, sister, or both, across various phases, using a token economy task. The orangutan was more likely to choose prosocially when she could provide rewards to her sister and herself compared to when she could provide rewards to her mother and herself. However, when presented with the simultaneous options of providing rewards for self, self and mother, or self and sister, she chose prosocially equally often to her mother and sister. She made the largest number of prosocial choices in a phase when she could provide rewards to all participants (herself, her sister, and her mother) rather than providing rewards only to herself or only to herself and one other participant. Despite the obvious limitations of a single case study, the study adds to the limited information on prosocial preferences in less social primate species, particularly when given the chance to share food items with different kin.
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Pérez-Manrique A, Gomila A. Bottlenose dolphins do not behave prosocially in an instrumental helping task. Behav Processes 2019; 164:54-58. [PMID: 31026488 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.04.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2018] [Revised: 04/17/2019] [Accepted: 04/22/2019] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Although bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are known for being a highly social species that live in complex societies that rely on coalition formation and cooperative behaviours, experimental studies on prosocial behaviour in this species are scarce. Helping others reach their goals (instrumental helping) is considered as an example of prosocial behaviour. Thus, in this pilot study, we examined whether a group of five captive bottlenose dolphins would behave prosocially in an instrumental helping task. Dolphins were given the opportunity to share tokens that allow their partners to obtain a preferred toy. Dolphins were tested in their free time and they could choose to share the tokens or do nothing. None of the dolphins shared the tokens, instead, they preferred to play with them, ignoring their partners. They did transfer the tokens to other sides of the pool but out of the reach of their partners. Therefore, this group of dolphins did not spontaneously help their partners in this task, showing no preference for other-regarding behaviour in this context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana Pérez-Manrique
- Human Evolution and Cognition, IFISC (CSIC-UIB) and Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma, Spain.
| | - Antoni Gomila
- Human Evolution and Cognition, IFISC (CSIC-UIB) and Department of Psychology, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma, Spain
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Mendonça RS, Dahl CD, Carvalho S, Matsuzawa T, Adachi I. Touch-screen-guided task reveals a prosocial choice tendency by chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes). PeerJ 2018; 6:e5315. [PMID: 30083456 PMCID: PMC6074756 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2018] [Accepted: 07/05/2018] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans help others even without direct benefit for themselves. However, the nature of altruistic (i.e., only the other benefits) and prosocial (i.e., self and other both benefit) behaviors in our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, remains controversial. To address this further, we developed a touch-screen-guided task that allowed us to increase the number of trials for a thorough test of chimpanzees’ prosocial and altruistic tendencies. Mother-offspring dyads were tested in the same compartment; one was the actor while the other was the recipient. In Experiment 1, the actor chose among three options: prosocial, selfish (only the actor benefited) and altruistic. To better understand the nature of the chimpanzees’ choices and to improve experimental control, we conducted two additional experiments. Experiment 2 consisted of two-option choices interspersed with three-option choices, and in Experiment 3 the two-option choice were blocked across all trials. The results of Experiment 1 clearly showed that chimpanzees acted prosocially in the touch-screen-guided task, choosing the prosocial option on an average of 79% of choices. Five out of the six chimpanzees showed the preference to act prosocially against chance level. The preference for the prosocial option persisted when conditions were changed in Experiments 2 and 3. When only selfish and altruistic options were available in Experiments 2 and 3, chimpanzees preferred the selfish option. These results suggest that (1) most individuals understood the nature of the task and modified their behavior according to the available options, (2) five out of the six chimpanzees chose to act prosocially when they had the option to, and (3) offspring counterbalanced between altruistic and selfish, when given those two options perhaps to avoid suffering repercussions from the mother.
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Affiliation(s)
- Renata S Mendonça
- Primate Research Institute, Section of Language and Intelligence, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Japan.,Centre for Functional Ecology-Science for People & the Planet, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Christoph D Dahl
- Institute of Biology, Department of Comparative Cognition, University of Neuchatel, Neuchâtel, NE, Switzerland
| | - Susana Carvalho
- Centre for Functional Ecology-Science for People & the Planet, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.,Primate Models for Behavioural Evolution Lab, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.,Interdisciplinary Centre for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB), University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal.,Gorongosa Restoration Project, Gorongosa National Park, Sofala, Mozambique
| | | | - Ikuma Adachi
- Primate Research Institute, Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies in Primatology, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Japan
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Pérez-Manrique A, Gomila A. The comparative study of empathy: sympathetic concern and empathic perspective-taking in non-human animals. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2017; 93:248-269. [DOI: 10.1111/brv.12342] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2016] [Revised: 04/25/2017] [Accepted: 05/03/2017] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ana Pérez-Manrique
- Department of Psychology; Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), UIB, IFISC, Associated Unit to CSIC; 07122 Palma Spain
| | - Antoni Gomila
- Department of Psychology; Human Evolution and Cognition Group (EvoCog), UIB, IFISC, Associated Unit to CSIC; 07122 Palma Spain
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Tennie C, Jensen K, Call J. The nature of prosociality in chimpanzees. Nat Commun 2016; 7:13915. [PMID: 27996969 PMCID: PMC5187495 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13915] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2015] [Accepted: 11/11/2016] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
An important debate centres around the nature of prosociality in nonhuman primates. Chimpanzees help other individuals in some experimental settings, yet they do not readily share food. One solution to this paradox is that they are motivated to help others provided there are no competing interests. However, benefits to recipients could arise as by-products of testing. Here we report two studies that separate by-product from intended helping in chimpanzees using a GO/NO-GO paradigm. Actors in one group could help a recipient by releasing a food box, but the same action for another group prevented a recipient from being able to get food. We find no evidence for helping-chimpanzees engaged in the test regardless of the effects on their partners. Illusory prosocial behaviour could arise as a by-product of task design.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudio Tennie
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
| | - Keith Jensen
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Coupland 1 Building, Coupland Street, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
| | - Josep Call
- School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, UK
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig D-04103, Germany
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Silk JB, House BR. The evolution of altruistic social preferences in human groups. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2016; 371:20150097. [PMID: 26729936 PMCID: PMC4760197 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/12/2015] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
In this paper, we consider three hypotheses to account for the evolution of the extraordinary capacity for large-scale cooperation and altruistic social preferences within human societies. One hypothesis is that human cooperation is built on the same evolutionary foundations as cooperation in other animal societies, and that fundamental elements of the social preferences that shape our species' cooperative behaviour are also shared with other closely related primates. Another hypothesis is that selective pressures favouring cooperative breeding have shaped the capacity for cooperation and the development of social preferences, and produced a common set of behavioural dispositions and social preferences in cooperatively breeding primates and humans. The third hypothesis is that humans have evolved derived capacities for collaboration, group-level cooperation and altruistic social preferences that are linked to our capacity for culture. We draw on naturalistic data to assess differences in the form, scope and scale of cooperation between humans and other primates, experimental data to evaluate the nature of social preferences across primate species, and comparative analyses to evaluate the evolutionary origins of cooperative breeding and related forms of behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joan B Silk
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
| | - Bailey R House
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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