Generalized Reciprocity in Rats

Rutte, Claudia; Taborsky, Michael

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050196

Cited by 261 publications

(313 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(51 reference statements)

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“…It should further be noted that in contrast to previous experimental studies on animal reciprocity (39)(40)(41)(42), there was a distinct cognitive dimension to the current task-that is, chimpanzees did not merely respond to the outcome of the partner's actions but Fig. 2.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…One possibility, for instance, is that costly prosocial acts are contingent on others' prior helpful behaviors (37,38) and therefore could not be detected in experiments stripped of any prior cooperative interaction. Indeed, several studies have suggested reciprocal patterns of sharing behaviors in the animal kingdom (39)(40)(41)(42), although the underlying psychological mechanisms are not always clear. Although chimpanzees did not show such reciprocal prosocial patterns in some experiments (43,44), this can at least partly be explained by the subjects' lack of understanding of experimental setup and the choice contingencies (see refs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost

Schmelz

Grueneisen

Kabalak

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Humans regularly provide others with resources at a personal cost to themselves. Chimpanzees engage in some cooperative behaviors in the wild as well, but their motivational underpinnings are unclear. In three experiments, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) always chose between an option delivering food both to themselves and a partner and one delivering food only to themselves. In one condition, a conspecific partner had just previously taken a personal risk to make this choice available. In another condition, no assistance from the partner preceded the subject’s decision. Chimpanzees made significantly more prosocial choices after receiving their partner’s assistance than when no assistance was given (experiment 1) and, crucially, this was the case even when choosing the prosocial option was materially costly for the subject (experiment 2). Moreover, subjects appeared sensitive to the risk of their partner’s assistance and chose prosocially more often when their partner risked losing food by helping (experiment 3). These findings demonstrate experimentally that chimpanzees are willing to incur a material cost to deliver rewards to a conspecific, but only if that conspecific previously assisted them, and particularly when this assistance was risky. Some key motivations involved in human cooperation thus may have deeper phylogenetic roots than previously suspected

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost

Schmelz

Grueneisen

Kabalak

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…For instance, in experimental situations, animals are generally forced to interact with a given partner, whereas under natural conditions, they can choose or refuse partners, based on their level of attachment toward them or even on their reputation (e.g. Rutte & Taborsky 2007. We recommend, therefore, that future studies be conducted in more natural situations, to evaluate how widespread reciprocal altruism is among animals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term social bonds promote cooperation in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

2009

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Reciprocal altruism, one of the most probable explanations for cooperation among non-kin, has been modelled as a Prisoner's Dilemma. According to this game, cooperation could evolve when individuals, who expect to play again, use conditional strategies like tit-for-tat or Pavlov. There is evidence that humans use such strategies to achieve mutual cooperation, but most controlled experiments with nonhuman animals have failed to find cooperation. One reason for this could be that subjects fail to cooperate because they behave as if they were to play only once. To assess this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment with monogamous zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) that were tested in a two-choice apparatus, with either their social partner or an experimental opponent of the opposite sex. We found that zebra finches maintained high levels of cooperation in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game only when interacting with their social partner. Although other mechanisms may have contributed to the observed difference between the two treatments, our results support the hypothesis that animals do not systematically give in to the short-term temptation of cheating when long-term benefits exist. Thus, our findings contradict the commonly accepted idea that reciprocal altruism will be rare in non-human animals.

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“…Generalized reciprocity results when B helps C because A helped B independently of the identity of individuals (Hamilton and Taborsky, 2005a;Pfeiffer et al, 2005;Rutte and Taborsky, 2007). There is evidence for generalized reciprocity in humans (Yamagishi and Cook, 1993) and rats (Rutte and Taborsky, 2007).…”

Section: Generalized Reciprocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is evidence for generalized reciprocity in humans (Yamagishi and Cook, 1993) and rats (Rutte and Taborsky, 2007). It is related to kin selection because, ultimately, both rely on positive assortment of co-operators (Hamilton, 1975;Hamilton and Taborsky, 2005a;Lehmann and Keller, 2006).…”

Section: Generalized Reciprocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

On the further integration of cooperative breeding and cooperation theory

Bergmüller

Russell

Johnstone

et al. 2007

Behavioural Processes

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We present a synopsis about the commentaries to the target article "Integrating cooperative breeding into theoretical concepts of cooperation", in which we attempted to integrate general mechanisms to explain cooperative behaviour among unrelated individuals with classic concepts to explain helping behaviour in cooperative breeders that do not invoke kin-based benefits. Here we (1) summarize the positions of the commentators concerning the main issues we raised in the target article and discuss important criticisms and extensions. (2) We relate our target article to some recent reviews on the evolution of cooperation and, (3) clarify how we use terminology with regard to cooperation and cooperative behaviour. (4) We discuss several aspects that were raised with respect to cooperative interactions including by-product mutualism, generalised reciprocity and multi-level selection and, (5) examine the alternatives to our classification scheme as proposed by some commentaries. (6) Finally, we highlight several aspects that might hinder the application of game theoretical mechanisms of cooperation in cooperatively breeding systems. Although there is broad agreement that cooperative breeding theory should be integrated within the more general concepts of cooperation, there is some debate about how this may be achieved. We conclude that the contributions in this special issue provide a fruitful first step and ample suggestions for future directions with regard to a more unified framework of cooperation in cooperative breeders.

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Generalized Reciprocity in Rats

Cited by 261 publications

References 43 publications

Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost

Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost

Long-term social bonds promote cooperation in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

On the further integration of cooperative breeding and cooperation theory

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