Biological requirements for occupation in primates: An exploratory study and theoretical analysis

Abstract

To explore the meaning of biological requirements for occupation, this study systematically investigated shifts in zoo chimpanzees’ patterns of time‐use as a function of changing environmental states of occupational enrichment versus impoverishment. The chimpanzees were found to demonstrate ethological needs, or needs that are rooted in innate motivations for action, to use tools imaginatively, involve themselves in sustained foraging challenges, build nests, groom, play, and manipulate objects. In that these activities possess both evolutionary survival value and long phylogenetic histories in the primate order, the concept of root occupations was proposed. Rather than viewing root occupations as emanating from an innate drive for environmental mastery, or as suggesting the validity either of biological or cultural determinism, it was argued that diverse cultural elaborations upon root occupations remain salient in the daily occupational behavior of modern humans. Moreover, it was proposed that human morphology and neurobiology are exquisitely adapted both to prompt, and support, the expression of these cultural elaborations. Lastly, by examining the nature of transactions between primates and their action environments, the relationship of human's biological endowment (or system) to biological needs for occupation was explored.