Inequity aversion in rats, Rattus norvegicus

Oberliessen, Lina; Hernandez-Lallement, Julen; Schäble, Sandra; Wingerden, Marijn van; Seinstra, Maayke; Kalenscher, Tobias

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.03.007

Cited by 54 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…The main finding is that individuals from various species of primates reject the less-preferred food (food that they would otherwise readily accept) if a conspecific gets better food for the same effort [28]. A similar pattern of behaviour has recently been demonstrated in various species outside the primate taxa, such as domestic dogs, rats, and possibly crows and ravens [37][38][39][40][41][42]. The question from a psychological point of view is: how are rejections of the less-preferred food to be interpreted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the inequity aversion task

et al. 2017

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Chimpanzees' refusal of less-preferred food when an experimenter has previously provided preferred food to a conspecific has been taken as evidence for a sense of fairness. Here, we present a novel hypothesis-the social disappointment hypothesis-according to which food refusals express chimpanzees' disappointment in the human experimenter for not rewarding them as well as they could have. We tested this hypothesis using a two-by-two design in which food was either distributed by an experimenter or a machine and with a partner present or absent. We found that chimpanzees were more likely to reject food when it was distributed by an experimenter rather than by a machine and that they were not more likely to do so when a partner was present. These results suggest that chimpanzees' refusal of less-preferred food stems from social disappointment in the experimenter and not from a sense of fairness.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the inequity aversion task

et al. 2017

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“…In this phase, rats were trained together. The aCS+/aCS-of the actor and pCS+/pCS-of the partner 231 were combined in three compound combinations with the following reward outcomes: Both Reward (BR), Own reward, while the partner rats would, to avoid a potential reward/value conflict due to disadvantageous inequity 234 aversion (Fehr and Schmidt, 1999), which has been reported in rats as well (Oberliessen et al, 2016). Rats' 235 conditioned responses to these compound cues are shown and a direct comparison of these responses to the 236 original aCS+ and aCS-cues was made ( Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Vicarious reward unblocks associative learning about novel cues in male rats

Gurp

Hoog

Kalenscher

et al. 2019

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6 Marijn van Wingerden, Jochen Hoog and Sander van Gurp were supported by the Volkswagen Stiftung Freigeist fellowship, 7 AZ88216 8 Abstract 9Many species, including humans, are sensitive to social signals and their valuation is important in social learning. 10When social cues indicate that another is experiencing reward, they could convey vicarious reward value and 11 prompt social learning. Here, we introduce a task that investigates if vicarious reward delivery in male rats can 12 drive reinforcement learning in a formal associative learning paradigm. Using the blocking/unblocking paradigm, 13we found that when actor rats have fully learned a stimulus-self reward association, adding a cue that predicted 14 additional partner reward unblocked associative learning about this cue. In contrast, additional cues that did not 15 predict partner reward remained blocked from acquiring associative value. Preventing social signal exchange 16 between the partners resulted in cues signaling partner reward remaining blocked. Taken together, these 17 results suggest that vicarious rewards can drive reinforcement learning in rats, and that the transmission of 18 social cues is necessary for this learning to occur. 24prompting questions why actor engage in them (de Waal and Suchak

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“…Kea showed no evidence of reacting to inequity in food value, as has been claimed in capuchins, rats, macaques and chimpanzees [4,11,14–16], nor did they react to inequity in effort, as has been suggested in dogs and cotton-top tamarins [22,23]. They also did not react to manipulations in their expectation of food type, as seen in crows and ravens [24].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Kea show no evidence of inequity aversion

2017

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It has been suggested that inequity aversion is a mechanism that evolved in humans to maximize the pay-offs from engaging in cooperative tasks and to foster long-term cooperative relationships between unrelated individuals. In support of this, evidence of inequity aversion in nonhuman animals has typically been found in species that, like humans, live in complex social groups and demonstrate cooperative behaviours. We examined inequity aversion in the kea (Nestor notabilis), which lives in social groups but does not appear to demonstrate wild cooperative behaviours, using a classic token exchange paradigm. We compared the number of successful exchanges and the number of abandoned trials in each condition and found no evidence of an aversion to inequitable outcomes when there was a difference between reward quality or working effort required between actor and partner. We also found no evidence of inequity aversion when the subject received no reward while their partner received a low-value reward.

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Inequity aversion in rats, Rattus norvegicus

Cited by 54 publications

References 53 publications

Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the inequity aversion task

Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the inequity aversion task

Vicarious reward unblocks associative learning about novel cues in male rats

Kea show no evidence of inequity aversion

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