Orangutans (Pongo spp.) do not spontaneously share benefits with familiar conspecifics in a choice paradigm
Orangutans (Pongo spp.) do not spontaneously share benefits with familiar conspecifics in a choice paradigm
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DOI：
10.1007/s10329-015-0460-8
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发表时间：
2015-04-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.7
通讯作者：
Tomonaga, Masaki
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kim, Yena;Martinez, Laura;Tomonaga, Masaki
人类被认为是独一无二的，他们有能力自愿帮助他人，即使有时可能会产生巨大的成本。然而，越来越多的研究表明，亲社会行为不仅可以在人类中观察到，而且也可以在生活在复杂社会群体中的非人类灵长类动物中观察到。亲社会性经常被描述为促进群体生活的一个主要因素。尽管如此，很少有人探索独居的灵长类动物，如猩猩，是否也有这种倾向。在本研究中，我们测试了四个圈养猩猩（Pongo abelii x pigmaeus，Pongo pigmaeus）在一个简单的食物传递任务。他们有一个选择，产生相同的成本，在为自己获得食物奖励和为被动地坐在相邻摊位的同种接受者提供额外的食物奖励之间。两只猩猩扮演演员的角色，两只猩猩作为接受者参与。结果表明，行动者并没有选择把食物送到接受者手中的机会比预期的要多（平均为51. 3%）。控制条件表明，这种倾向是独立的演员的任务的理解。这些发现表明，猩猩不会自发地与其他同种分享利益，即使亲社会的选择并没有使它们处于不利地位。这项研究给出了第一个实验证据，社会圈养的猩猩不表现出亲社会的选择范式实验。应该使用不同的实验范式进行进一步的研究，以检查这种趋势是否与以前的研究结果一致，假设人类和其他群体生活的灵长类动物中表现出的亲社会倾向增强是生活在复杂的社会环境中的进化结果。
Humans are thought to be unique in their ability to help others voluntarily even though it may sometimes incur substantial costs. However, there are a growing number of studies showing that prosocial behaviors can be observed, not only in humans, but also among nonhuman primates that live in complex social groups. Prosociality has often been described as a major factor that facilitates group living. Nonetheless, it has seldom been explored whether solitary living primates, such as orangutans, share this propensity. In the present study, we tested four captive orangutans (Pongo abelii x pigmaeus, Pongo pigmaeus) in a simple food-delivering task. They had a choice, incurring the same cost, between getting a food reward for themselves and providing an additional food reward to a conspecific recipient passively sitting in an adjacent booth. Two orangutans played the actor's role, and two orangutans participated as recipients. The results showed that the actors did not choose to deliver food to the recipients more often than expected by chance (51.3 % on average). The control condition demonstrated that this tendency was independent of the actor's understanding of the task. These findings suggest that orangutans do not spontaneously share benefits with other conspecifics, even when the prosocial choice does not disadvantage them. This study gives the first experimental evidence that socially housed captive orangutans do not behave prosocially in a choice paradigm experiment. Further studies using a different experimental paradigm should be conducted to examine whether this tendency is consistent with previous findings hypothesizing that the enhanced prosocial propensity shown in humans and other group living primates is an evolutionary outcome of living in complex social environments.