Prospection and delay of gratification support the development of calculated reciprocity

Grueneisen, Sebastian; Leimgruber, Kristin L.; Vogt, Randi L.; Warneken, Felix

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105369

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Over time, they may have realized that their partner proved helpful irrespective of their own behaviour, thus resulting in a drop in prosocial choices in later trials. What speaks against this explanation, however, is that this form of calculated prospective reciprocity requires sophisticated planning abilities and is not shown by human children until age 5 to 7 in comparable experimental settings (Grueneisen et al, 2023;Warneken et al, 2019). Hence, while evidence for short-term reciprocity has been accumulating, the exact psychological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not yet well-understood and deserve further investigation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Around age 5, children also start to engage in future-oriented calculated reciprocity by strategically acting prosocially when others can reciprocate (Engelmann et al, 2013;Grueneisen & Warneken, 2022;Warneken et al, 2019) and this facility has been linked to children's developing skills for prospection and the willingness to delay rewards (Grueneisen et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Instrumental helping and short-term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children

Herrmann

2024

Preprint

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Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and humans cooperate in reciprocal patterns, but it is unclear whether these interactions are based on the same psychological foundations. While there is evidence suggesting that both species engage in long-term forms of reciprocity, there is very little work exploring their short-term behavioural contingencies with suitable methods. Here we present a direct comparative study on short-term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children using a novel, low-cost instrumental helping task. We investigated whether participants help a conspecific partner to obtain a tool for accessing a reward, and whether the level of helping depends on the partner’s previous helpful or unhelpful behaviour. In line with prior research, both chimpanzees and children demonstrated helping behavior toward their partner. However, the extent to which the two species showed short-term reciprocity differed considerably. After receiving help, tested children always helped in return. They helped substantially less when interacting with an unhelpful partner. Chimpanzees showed a higher tendency to help when interacting with a helpful compared to an unhelpful partner only in the first half the experiment. With increasing trial number, chimpanzees stopped discriminating between helpful and unhelpful partners. This study provides evidence for short-term reciprocity in human children and, to a lesser extent, in our closest living relatives. Our findings demonstrate that helping paradigms provide a useful context to investigate reciprocal motives in humans and chimpanzees alike.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instrumental helping and short-term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children

Herrmann

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Over time, they may have realized that their partner proved helpful irrespective of their own behaviour, thus resulting in a drop in prosocial choices in later trials. What speaks against this explanation, however, is that this form of calculated prospective reciprocity requires sophisticated planning abilities and is not shown by human children until age 5 to 7 in comparable experimental settings (Grueneisen et al., 2023; Warneken et al., 2019). Hence, while evidence for short‐term reciprocity has been accumulating, the exact psychological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not yet well‐understood and deserve further investigation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And House et al (2013) present unequivocal evidence for short-term reciprocity in children at the age of 5.5 years. Around age 5, children also start to engage in future-oriented calculated reciprocity by strategically acting prosocially when others can reciprocate (Engelmann et al, 2013;Grueneisen & Warneken, 2022;Warneken et al, 2019), and this facility has been linked to children's developing skills for prospection and the willingness to delay rewards (Grueneisen et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instrumental helping and short‐term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children

Knofe,

Engelmann,

Grueneisen

et al. 2023

Ethology

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Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and humans cooperate in reciprocal patterns, but it is unclear whether these interactions are based on the same psychological foundations. While there is evidence suggesting that both species engage in long‐term forms of reciprocity, there is very little work exploring their short‐term behavioural contingencies with suitable methods. Here, we present a direct comparative study on short‐term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children using a novel, low‐cost instrumental helping task. We investigated whether participants help a conspecific partner to obtain a tool for accessing a reward, and whether the level of helping depends on the partner's previous helpful or unhelpful behaviour. In line with prior research, both chimpanzees and children demonstrated helping behaviour towards their partner. However, the extent to which the two species showed short‐term reciprocity differed considerably. After receiving help, tested children always helped in return. They helped substantially less when interacting with an unhelpful partner. Chimpanzees showed a higher tendency to help when interacting with a helpful compared to an unhelpful partner only in the first half the experiment. With increasing trial number, chimpanzees stopped discriminating between helpful and unhelpful partners. This study provides evidence for short‐term reciprocity in human children and, to a lesser extent, in our closest living relatives. Our findings demonstrate that helping paradigms provide a useful context to investigate reciprocal motives in humans and chimpanzees alike.

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“…Another capacity supporting flexible partner choice might be prospection —the ability to mentally simulate future events to guide actions in the present (Gilbert & Wilson, 2007; Suddendorf et al., 2011)—which improves markedly over the studied age range (Atance & Jackson, 2009; Coughlin et al., 2019) and is related to the emergence of strategic cooperative decision‐making (Grueneisen et al., 2023). Prospection capacities would have enabled children to mentally project themselves into various task situations, anticipate their respective needs, and select partners with whom those needs could best be met.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children's adaptive partner choice in cooperation and competition contexts

Grueneisen,

Török,

Wathiyage Don

et al. 2023

Child Development

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Choosing adequate partners is essential for cooperation, but how children calibrate their partner choice to specific social challenges is unknown. In two experiments, 4‐ to 7‐year‐olds (N = 189, 49% girls, mostly White, data collection: 03.2021–09.2022) were presented with partners in possession of different positive qualities. Children then recruited partners for hypothetical tasks that differed with respect to the quality necessary for success. Children and the selected partner either worked together toward a common goal or competed against each other. From age 5, children selectively chose individuals in possession of task‐relevant qualities as cooperative partners while avoiding them as competitors. Younger children chose partners indiscriminately. Children thus learn to strategically adjust their partner choice depending on context‐specific task demands and different social goals.

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Prospection and delay of gratification support the development of calculated reciprocity

Cited by 4 publications

References 75 publications

Instrumental helping and short-term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children

Instrumental helping and short-term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children

Instrumental helping and short‐term reciprocity in chimpanzees and human children

Young children's adaptive partner choice in cooperation and competition contexts

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