Social constraints determine what is learned in the chimpanzee

doi:10.1016/0376-6357(93)90090-E

Behavioural Processes

Volume 28, Issue 3, February 1993, Pages 173-179

https://doi.org/10.1016/0376-6357(93)90090-E Get rights and content

Abstract

A group of six chimpanzees was placed in a social learning situation, without training. The learning task was an operant conditioning situation; that is, a subject had to pull two handles simultaneously to cause a piece of fruit to fall into the cage. Only three individuals acquired the operant behaviour. For the operant individuals, social influences on the expression of the learning task were then examined; the dominant chimpanzee during feeding had an inhibiting effect when close to the operant subjects. Depending on the subject, social factors may influence not only the specific expression of what is learnt, but also the nature of what is learnt. Chimpanzees appear to experience situations differently: they develop an individual problem-solving strategy according to their social relationships even if the experimental procedure is the same for all.

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Social manipulation in nonhuman primates: Cognitive and motivational determinants
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It is therefore unsurprising that most of the cooperative apparatus problems required extensive experience with the task-relevant contingencies. In some studies subjects required extensive training already at the stage of individual familiarization with the task (e.g., Chalmeau and Gallo, 1993). In other studies, subjects required extensive experience before entering the critical test phase.
Social interactions are the result of individuals’ cooperative and competitive tendencies expressed over an extended period of time. Although social manipulation, i.e., using another individual to achieve one’s own goals, is a crucial aspect of social interactions, there has been no comprehensive attempt to differentiate its various types and to map its cognitive and motivational determinants. For this purpose, we survey in this article the experimental literature on social interactions in nonhuman primates. We take social manipulation, illustrated by a case study with orangutans (Pongo abelii), as our starting point and move in two directions. First, we will focus on a flexibility/sociality axis that includes technical problem solving, social tool-use and communication. Second, we will focus on a motivational/prosociality axis that includes exploitation, cooperation, and helping. Combined, the two axes offer a way to capture a broad range of social interactions performed by human and nonhuman primates.
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Engineering cooperation in chimpanzees: tolerance constraints on cooperation
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The cooperative abilities of captive chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, in experiments do not match the sophistication that might be predicted based on their naturally occurring cooperative behaviours. This discrepancy might partly be because in previous experiments potential chimpanzee cooperators were partnered without regard to their social relationship. We investigated the ability of chimpanzee dyads to solve a physical task cooperatively in relation to their interindividual tolerance levels. Pairs that were most capable of sharing food outside the test were also able to cooperate spontaneously (by simultaneously pulling two ropes) to obtain food. In contrast, pairs that were less inclined to share food outside of the test were unlikely to cooperate. Furthermore, previously successful subjects stopped cooperating when paired with a less tolerant partner, even when the food rewards were presented in a dispersed and divisible form to reduce competition between subjects. These results show that although chimpanzees are capable of spontaneous cooperation in a novel instrumental task, tolerance acts as a constraint on their ability to solve such cooperative problems. This finding highlights the importance of controlling such social constraints in future experiments on chimpanzee cooperation, and suggests that the evolution of human-like cooperative skills might have been preceded by the evolution of a more egalitarian social system and a more human-like temperament.
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Citation Excerpt :
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Social factors determine cooperation in marmosets
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We investigated which factors determine cooperative behaviour of common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, in an instrumental task. During the approach phase each of eight individuals of a family group learned in isolation to pull a handle moving a bowl with attractive food towards its reach. In the following two experimental phases we used 16 dyads. In a dyadic training phase we assessed whether the partners were willing to manipulate the apparatus and to share food. In the subsequent cooperation test we examined whether they were willing to cooperate at a slightly modified apparatus whose solution required one individual (the producer) to pull the handle and the other (the scrounger) to grasp the bowl. Although all individuals were willing to cooperate with at least one partner, only half of the dyads solved the task in the cooperation phase. Examination of the factors that correlated with success in this phase revealed that primarily those dyads cooperated in which the dominant subject took the role of the scrounger and the subordinate took the role of the producer. However, in these successful dyads the dominant animal did not force the subordinate partner to pull the handle. Rather, the partners of cooperative dyads shared the reward and pulled equally often in both the dyadic training and the cooperation test. Thus, cooperation of marmosets in an instrumental task seems to depend on a specific distribution of roles and the tolerance of higher-ranking individuals.Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Behavioural Processes

Abstract

References (10)

Baboons, chimpanzees, and tools

J. Human Evol.

Social facilitation: A meta analysis of 241 studies

Psychol. Bull.

Performance correlates of social behavior and organization: Social rank and omission of reinforcement in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Primates

Performance correlates of social behavior and organization: Rank and complex problem-solving in crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Primates

Social transmission of acquired behaviour

Cited by (29)

Spatial working memory is disparately interrelated with social status through different developmental stages in rats

Social manipulation in nonhuman primates: Cognitive and motivational determinants

Social Learning in Dogs

Engineering cooperation in chimpanzees: tolerance constraints on cooperation

Comparative social cognition: What can dogs teach us?

Social factors determine cooperation in marmosets