Abstract
Human prosociality is one of the defining characteristics of our species, yet the ontogeny of altruistic behavior remains poorly understood. The evolution of widespread food sharing in humans helped shape cooperation, family formation, life history, language, and the development of economies of scale. While the behavioral and ecological correlates of food sharing among adults are widely studied, very little is known about food sharing among children. Here, in the first study to analyze the food sharing patterns of hunter-gatherer children, we show that while sharing may be biased towards kin, reciprocity characterizes the majority of all sharing dyads, both related and unrelated. These data lend support to the recent claim that discrimination among kin might be linked with reciprocal altruism theory. Furthermore, we show that age positively correlates with an increase in sharing, both in frequency and amount, supporting recent suggestions that prosocial behaviors and egalitarianism develop strongly in middle childhood when children acquire the normative rules of their society.
Highlights
The evolution of routine food sharing outside of the mother-infant dyad is one of the fundamental characteristics that differentiates humans from other apes [1]
The importance of food sharing is implicit in evolutionary models of life history, family formation, and altruism [8,9,10,11,12], yet the ontogeny of such behaviors is conspicuously absent from most theoretical models
The development of food sharing networks in childhood suggests that altruistic behavior in humans develops early
Summary
The evolution of routine food sharing outside of the mother-infant dyad is one of the fundamental characteristics that differentiates humans from other apes [1]. Sharing food may function to reduce variance in consumption, develop and maintain social bonds, or advertise skill in resource acquisition [2,3,4,5,6,7]. The importance of food sharing is implicit in evolutionary models of life history, family formation, and altruism [8,9,10,11,12], yet the ontogeny of such behaviors is conspicuously absent from most theoretical models (for a notable exception, see [13]). Given that childhood is argued to be the time when other-regarding preferences and egalitarianism develop [14], it is crucial to begin incorporating children into our evolutionary models in order to understand how the development of food sharing may influence prosocial behaviors. A wide range of evolutionary models explaining food sharing among hunter-gatherers has been
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
