Abstract
Humans are thought to be unique in their ability to help others voluntarily even though it may sometimes incur substantial costs. However, there are a growing number of studies showing that prosocial behaviors can be observed, not only in humans, but also among nonhuman primates that live in complex social groups. Prosociality has often been described as a major factor that facilitates group living. Nonetheless, it has seldom been explored whether solitary living primates, such as orangutans, share this propensity. In the present study, we tested four captive orangutans (Pongo abelii × pigmaeus, Pongo pigmaeus) in a simple food-delivering task. They had a choice, incurring the same cost, between getting a food reward for themselves and providing an additional food reward to a conspecific recipient passively sitting in an adjacent booth. Two orangutans played the actor’s role, and two orangutans participated as recipients. The results showed that the actors did not choose to deliver food to the recipients more often than expected by chance (51.3 % on average). The control condition demonstrated that this tendency was independent of the actor’s understanding of the task. These findings suggest that orangutans do not spontaneously share benefits with other conspecifics, even when the prosocial choice does not disadvantage them. This study gives the first experimental evidence that socially housed captive orangutans do not behave prosocially in a choice paradigm experiment. Further studies using a different experimental paradigm should be conducted to examine whether this tendency is consistent with previous findings hypothesizing that the enhanced prosocial propensity shown in humans and other group living primates is an evolutionary outcome of living in complex social environments.
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Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by a JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (#23220006 to MT and #25666 to YK) and by the Global COE program to Kyoto University from MEXT, Japan. The work was also supported by the Ewha Global Top5 Grant 2013 of Ewha Womans University. We are thankful to the Director Jeong Rae Rho and the zookeepers at the Seoul Zoo for helping us to accomplish the experiment. We also thank the primate team of Ewha Womans University for their assistance, especially Wonhee Lee, Haneul Jang, Yoonsoo Choi, and other volunteer students. This study could not have been conducted without the support of Prof. Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Prof. Misato Hayashi, Prof. Ikuma Adachi, and the CICASP (Center for International Collaboration and Advanced Studies on Primatology) members of Primate Research Institute. We are also very grateful to Prof. Michael A Huffman, Dr. Noko Kuze, Tomoyuki Tajima, and Yuki Hanazuka for their invaluable comments. The current study adhered to the 2010 Version of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Primates by the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, and was approved by the Animal Welfare and Animal Care Committee of the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, and by the Animal Research Committee of Kyoto University. Seoul Zoo is a member of World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), and our study was conducted according to these guidelines and the Ethical Guidelines for the Conduct of Research on Animals by Zoos and Aquariums of WAZA.
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Kim, Y., Martinez, L., Choe, J.C. et al. Orangutans (Pongo spp.) do not spontaneously share benefits with familiar conspecifics in a choice paradigm. Primates 56, 193–200 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-015-0460-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-015-0460-8