Abstract
Cooperation by generalised reciprocity implies that individuals apply the decision rule “help anyone if helped by someone”. This mechanism has been shown to generate evolutionarily stable levels of cooperation, but as yet it is unclear how widely this cooperation mechanism is applied among animals. Dogs (Canis familiaris) are highly social animals with considerable cognitive potential and the ability to differentiate between individual social partners. But although dogs can solve complex problems, they may use simple rules for behavioural decisions. Here we show that dogs trained in an instrumental cooperative task to provide food to a social partner help conspecifics more often after receiving help from a dog before. Remarkably, in so doing they show no distinction between partners that had helped them before and completely unfamiliar conspecifics. Apparently, dogs use the simple decision rule characterizing generalised reciprocity, although they are probably capable of using the more complex decision rule of direct reciprocity: “help someone who has helped you”. However, generalized reciprocity involves lower information processing costs and is therefore a cheaper cooperation strategy. Our results imply that generalised reciprocity might be applied more commonly than direct reciprocity also in other mutually cooperating animals.
Highlights
Reciprocity can explain cooperation among unrelated individuals, where two or more individuals help each other in turn[1]
We test whether highly social animals like domestic dogs prefer using simple or complex mechanisms when deciding whether to cooperate with a social partner
We ask whether dogs reciprocate help received from a conspecific at all, and if so, whether they make use of their cognitive capacity when deciding to help a social partner in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma paradigm (IPD), or whether instead they apply the simpler and cheaper decision rule characterizing generalised reciprocity
Summary
Reciprocity can explain cooperation among unrelated individuals, where two or more individuals help each other in turn[1]. In contrast to direct reciprocity, generalised reciprocity implies that individuals help others if they received help from someone else This is cognitively much less demanding, because individuals do not need to remember with whom they previously interacted and how certain individuals previously behaved towards them[19,20,21]. In a recent study they were shown to donate food to a familiar conspecific in a bar pulling task[33] Despite their capacity extending beyond the application of simple rules, dogs have been shown to use simple cognitive mechanisms for behavioural decisions[34]. We ask whether dogs reciprocate help received from a conspecific at all, and if so, whether they make use of their cognitive capacity when deciding to help a social partner in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma paradigm (IPD), or whether instead they apply the simpler and cheaper decision rule characterizing generalised reciprocity
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