Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) do not develop contingent reciprocity in an experimental task |
| |
Authors: | Sarah Frances Brosnan Joan B Silk Joseph Henrich Mary Catherine Mareno Susan P Lambeth Steven J Schapiro |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, PO Box 5010, Atlanta, GA 30302-5010, USA;(2) Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA;(3) Department of Anthropology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA;(4) Department of Psychology, University of British Colombia, Vancouver, BC, Canada;(5) Department of Economics, University of British Colombia, Vancouver, BC, Canada |
| |
Abstract: | Chimpanzees provide help to unrelated individuals in a broad range of situations. The pattern of helping within pairs suggests
that contingent reciprocity may have been an important mechanism in the evolution of altruism in chimpanzees. However, correlational
analyses of the cumulative pattern of interactions over time do not demonstrate that helping is contingent upon previous acts
of altruism, as required by the theory of reciprocal altruism. Experimental studies provide a controlled approach to examine
the importance of contingency in helping interactions. In this study, we evaluated whether chimpanzees would be more likely
to provide food to a social partner from their home group if their partner had previously provided food for them. The chimpanzees
manipulated a barpull apparatus in which actors could deliver rewards either to themselves and their partners or only to themselves.
Our findings indicate that the chimpanzees’ responses were not consistently influenced by the behavior of their partners in
previous rounds. Only one of the 11 dyads that we tested demonstrated positive reciprocity. We conclude that contingent reciprocity
does not spontaneously arise in experimental settings, despite the fact that patterns of behavior in the field indicate that
individuals cooperate preferentially with reciprocating partners. |
| |
Keywords: | Chimpanzee Pan troglodytes Reciprocity Prosocial behavior Other-regarding behavior |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|