Prosociality, social tolerance and partner choice facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation in common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus

J.S Martin,S.E Koski,T Bugnyar,A.V Jaeggi,J.J.M Massen

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.12.016

J.S Martin, S.E Koski + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.12.016

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Abstract

Prosocial motivation has been suggested to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of cooperative interactions, as well as the evolution of social systems reliant on helping behaviour and social coordination. Previous comparative research on the link between prosociality and cooperation has been limited, however, by the absence of directly comparable measures of these traits among the same individuals. In the present study, we therefore examined intraspecific variation in prosociality and cooperative behaviour within a captive colony of group-living, cooperatively breeding common marmosets to provide a direct experimental test of these hypothesized benefits. We measured prosociality using a group service food-provisioning paradigm, and we assessed mutually beneficial dyadic cooperation with the loose string coordinated pulling paradigm. In addition, we also investigated the effects of individual social tolerance and partner choice, which have previously been identified as key factors promoting prosociality and cooperation among primates. As predicted, successful cooperation in the loose string paradigm was positively associated with prosociality, as well as with social tolerance and partner choice. These effects were independent of age, sex, personality, food motivation and learning across experimental sessions. Our results therefore suggest that prosocial motivation, social tolerance and partner choice can each facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation and social coordination in marmosets, supporting the hypothesized role of these mechanisms in the evolution of cooperative behaviour among primates.

Highlights

Prosocial motivation has been suggested to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of cooperative interactions, as well as the evolution of social systems reliant on helping behaviour and social coordination
We built on previous research by directly testing whether prosociality, social tolerance and partner choice facilitate individuals’ capacity to achieve social coordination and problem solving in a mutually beneficial cooperative task
Previous attempts to address the role of prosociality in animal cooperation have been limited by the employment of distinct behavioural measures and a reliance on interspecific comparisons, preventing an unambiguous assessment of the benefits of prosocial motivation for cooperation among conspecifics

Summary

Introduction

Prosocial motivation has been suggested to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of cooperative interactions, as well as the evolution of social systems reliant on helping behaviour and social coordination. Motivated individuals are those who positively weigh the payoffs of others in their decisions and all else being equal, are more likely to exhibit actions that increase the observed benefits accrued to social partners Given that such motivational parameters cannot be directly observed, prosociality must instead be inferred from empirical variation in individuals' expected probability of acting to help or benefit others, as observed under standardized experimental conditions (Burkart et al, 2014; Jaeggi et al, 2010; Massen, Haley, & Bugnyar, 2020). This experimental approach to investigating prosociality is employed in the present study

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