Proactive prosociality in a cooperatively breeding corvid, the azure-winged magpie (
            <i>Cyanopica cyana</i>
            )

Horn, Lisa; Scheer, Clara; Bugnyar, Thomas; Massen, Jorg J. M.

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2016.0649

Cited by 64 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Again, interspecific variation in proactive prosociality was better explained by the extent of allomaternal care rather than qualifying as a cooperative breeder or not as, as was the case for tolerance. Such a link has been questioned, in particular for non-primate species (see [110,111], but also [104]), but recent evidence from dolphins [112] and corvids [113] suggests that it may not be limited to primates. More comparative data will help to further narrow down in which lineages and under which conditions allomaternal care is linked with social tolerance and proactive prosociality.…”

Section: (B) Psychological Adaptations In Helpersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking for unity in diversity: human cooperative childcare in comparative perspective

2017

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Humans engage in cooperative childcare, which includes some elements not found in other animals, such as the presence of post-reproductive helpers, extensive food sharing among adults and a pervasive sexual division of labour. In animals, cooperative offspring care has typically been studied in two different contexts. The first mainly involves helpers contributing care in cooperatively breeding family groups; the second context is allomaternal care in species usually not categorized as cooperative breeders (e.g. plural and communal breeders, often without male care). Comparative analyses suggest that cooperative breeding and allomaternal care in plural and communal breeders have distinct evolutionary origins, with humans fitting neither pathway entirely. Nevertheless, some critical proximate mechanisms of helping, including hormonal regulators, are likely to be shared across species. Other mechanisms may vary among species, such as social tolerance, proactive prosociality or conditional mother–infant bonding. These are presumably associated with specific details of the care system, such as whether all group members contribute, or whether mothers can potentially raise offspring alone. Thus, cooperative offspring care is seen in different contexts across animal lineages, but may nonetheless share several important psychological characteristics. We end by discussing how work on humans may play a unifying role in studying cooperative offspring care.

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Section: (B) Psychological Adaptations In Helpersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking for unity in diversity: human cooperative childcare in comparative perspective

2017

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“…A critical test of these hypotheses thus requires investigation of bonobos' tendency to directly transfer food and non-food items ([14], also see related work in more distant relatives of humans: e.g. [33,34]). According to the strong prosociality hypothesis, bonobos-like chimpanzees-will not exhibit any form of direct transfer of food.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bonobos voluntarily hand food to others but not toys or tools

2018

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A key feature of human prosociality is , the most active form of sharing in which donors voluntarily hand over resources Direct transfers buffer hunter-gatherers against foraging shortfalls. The emergence and elaboration of this behaviour thus likely played a key role in human evolution by promoting cooperative interdependence and ensuring that humans' growing energetic needs (e.g. for increasing brain size) were more reliably met. According to the , among great apes only humans exhibit sufficiently strong prosocial motivations to directly transfer food. The suggests instead that while other apes may make transfers in constrained settings, only humans share flexibly across food and non-food contexts. In controlled experiments, chimpanzees typically transfer objects but not food, supporting both hypotheses. In this paper, we show in two experiments that bonobos directly transfer food but not non-food items. These findings show that, in some contexts, bonobos exhibit a human-like motivation for direct food transfer. However, humans share across a far wider range of contexts, lending support to the versatile prosociality hypothesis. Our species' unusual prosocial flexibility is likely built on a prosocial foundation we share through common descent with the other apes.

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“…While prosocial sharing had long been regarded a hallmark of human behaviour, recent studies found prosocial tendencies in various non-human primate species (e.g. 13 – 16 , for a review see) 17 , dogs 18 and birds 19 . Investigating in which extant species prosociality occurs (and in which not) and how non-human prosocial tendencies compare to human ones allows researchers to hypothesize about the evolutionary foundations of human prosociality (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social status and prenatal testosterone exposure assessed via second-to-fourth digit ratio affect 6–9-year-old children’s prosocial choices

Horn

Hungerländer

Windhager

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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Prosocial behaviour (i.e., voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another) seems to be fully developed in children by the age of 6 years. However, questions about which factors modify prosocial behaviour at that age remain understudied. Here we used a resource allocation paradigm to test prosocial behaviour in 6–9-year-old school children. They could decide between a “selfish” (i.e., one sticker for themselves) and a “prosocial” option (i.e., one sticker for themselves and one for the receiver) and we tested whether friendship, social status and prenatal androgen exposure (approximated by the 2nd to 4th digit ratio; 2D:4D) influenced children’s prosocial choices. We found that children behaved prosocially, and that their prosocial tendencies were negatively correlated with prenatal androgen exposure; i.e., children with high 2D:4D ratios (reflecting low prenatal androgen exposure) acted more prosocially than children with low 2D:4D ratios. Further, their social status in the classroom influenced their choices: children with fewer interaction partners chose the “prosocial” option more often than more ‘popular’ children. However, they did so irrespectively of whether they were paired with a recipient or not. Our results highlight the importance of considering social, as well as physiological factors when investigating prosocial behaviour in children.

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Proactive prosociality in a cooperatively breeding corvid, the azure-winged magpie ( Cyanopica cyana )

Cited by 64 publications

References 15 publications

Looking for unity in diversity: human cooperative childcare in comparative perspective

Looking for unity in diversity: human cooperative childcare in comparative perspective

Bonobos voluntarily hand food to others but not toys or tools

Social status and prenatal testosterone exposure assessed via second-to-fourth digit ratio affect 6–9-year-old children’s prosocial choices

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