To Each According to his Need? Variability in the Responses to Inequity in Non-Human Primates

Price, Sara; Brosnan, Sarah F.

doi:10.1007/s11211-012-0153-z

Cited by 58 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 150 publications

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“…Most studies of primates to date have explored only responses to unequal distributions, to learn how individuals respond to inequity when they cannot alter their partner's outcomes (reviewed in ref. 24). …”

Section: Justice-and Fairness-related Behavior In Other Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this way, we will better understand the social and ecological conditions under which these preferences manifest, which lends additional insight into their function. Additionally, combining these behavioral studies with what we know about cognition may yield insights in to these behaviors, such as the overlap between inequity and delay of gratification (24).…”

Section: Future Directions and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Justice- and fairness-related behaviors in nonhuman primates

Brosnan

2013

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

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A distinctive feature across human societies is our interest in justice and fairness. People will sometimes invest in extremely costly behavior to achieve fair outcomes for themselves and others. Why do people care so much about justice? One way to address this is comparatively, exploring behaviors related to justice and fairness in other species. In this paper, I review work exploring responses to inequity, prosocial behavior, and other relevant behaviors in nonhuman primates in an effort to understand both the potential evolutionary function of these behaviors and the social and ecological reasons for the individual differences in behavior. I also consider how these behaviors relate to human behavior, particularly in the case of experimental studies using games derived from experimental economics to compare nonhuman primates' responses to those of humans in similar experimental conditions. These results emphasize the importance of a comparative approach to better understand the function and diversity of human behavior.comparative economics | decision-making | game theory | behavioral phylogeny | cooperation A feature of humans that apparently sets us apart as a species is our focus on others' well-being, as well as our own (1, 2). We will, sometimes at great personal cost, protest outcomes that we consider unfair, whether they personally affect us or have no direct impact on our lives. What is it that causes people to behave in this way? One possibility is that it is attributable to culture. In fact, only English has a word for the concept of "fairness"; other languages have adopted the English word, indicating a culturally broad interest in the concept but potentially implying that the concept is not ubiquitous (3). Another possibility is that we have evolved to be interested in the well-being of others. Although there are clear fitness benefits to considering one's own wellbeing, there are also (more delayed) benefits to considering others' well-being. There may be costs to helping others in the short term, but if there are long-term benefits, either because of continued interactions based on reciprocity or, more indirectly, because of gaining a reputation as a "fair" person, then the behavior can be selected (4). If this behavior has evolved, we may find similar behaviors, or precursor behaviors, in other species. Other species will not show these behaviors in the same way that humans do. Among other reasons for this, many behaviors related to fairness and justice, such as the ability to share information about a third party's previous behavior, require language. Nonetheless, an important question is the degree to which fairness and justice have evolved from similar sorts of behaviors in other species. This evolutionary approach provides insight into understanding our own behavior.In humans, the concept of fairness is closely related to that of justice. Distinguishing the two, fairness involves voluntary interactions with other individuals, whereas justice is meted out by an impartial third party (3). Based...

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Section: Justice-and Fairness-related Behavior In Other Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Directions and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Justice- and fairness-related behaviors in nonhuman primates

Brosnan

2013

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

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“…primates (see Price & Brosnan, 2012;Brosnan & de Waal 2014, for reviews), as well as 101! corvids (Wascher & Bugnyar, 2013) and dogs (Range, Horn, Viranyi, & Huber, 2009), 102!…”

Section: !mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…inequities have been based on paradigms in which subjects are required to perform an 116! effortful trading task to obtain food rewards (Price & Brosnan, 2012). Whether or not 117!…”

Section: !mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bonobos (Pan paniscus) vocally protest against violations of social expectations.

Clay

Ravaux

Waal

et al. 2016

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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24!Research has shown that great apes possess certain expectations about social 25! regularities and both perceive and act according to social rules within their group. included conflicts over a contested resource and conflicts that were provoked by 36! the victim, while unexpected aggression was any spontaneous, unprovoked 37! hostility towards the victim. For each conflict, we also determined its severity and 38! the composition of the nearby audience. We found that the acoustic and temporal 39! structure of victim screams was individually distinct and varied significantly 40! depending on whether or not aggression could be socially predicted. Certain 41! acoustic parameters also varied as a function of conflict severity, but unlike social 42! expectation, conflict severity did not discriminate scream acoustic structure 43! overall .We found no effect of audience composition. We concluded that, beyond

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Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) do not show an aversion to inequity in a token exchange task

Sosnowski

Drayton

Prétôt

et al. 2021

American J Primatol

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Although individuals in some species refuse foods they normally accept if their partner receives a more preferred one, this is not true across all species. The cooperation hypothesis proposes that this species‐level variability evolved because inequity aversion is a mechanism to identify situations in which cooperation is not paying off, and that species regularly observed cooperating should be more likely to be averse to inequity. To rule out other potential explanations of inequity aversion, we need to test the converse as well: species rarely observed cooperating, especially those phylogenetically close to more cooperative species, should be less likely to be inequity averse. To this end, we tested eight zoo‐housed Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) on a token exchange task in which subjects received either the same food reward or a less‐preferred reward for the same or more effort than their partner, recording both refusals to participate in the exchange and refusals to accept the reward. Supporting the cooperation hypothesis, even with procedural differences across sessions, gorillas were significantly more likely to refuse in all conditions in which they received a low‐value food reward after completing an exchange, regardless of what their partner received, suggesting that gorillas were not inequity averse, but instead would not work for a low‐value reward. Additionally, gorillas were more likely to refuse later in the session; while the pattern of refusals remained unchanged after accounting for this, this suggests that species should be tested on as many trials as is practical.

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To Each According to his Need? Variability in the Responses to Inequity in Non-Human Primates

Cited by 58 publications

References 150 publications

Justice- and fairness-related behaviors in nonhuman primates

Justice- and fairness-related behaviors in nonhuman primates

Bonobos (Pan paniscus) vocally protest against violations of social expectations.

Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) do not show an aversion to inequity in a token exchange task

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