Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees

Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we sh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2006-03, Vol.311 (5765), p.1301-1303
Main Authors: Warneken, Felix, Tomasello, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Altruism
Animal ethology
Animals
Babies
Behavior, Animal
Biological altruism
Biological and medical sciences
Child, Preschool
Children
Chimpanzees
Comparative studies
Experimentation
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Helping Behavior
Humans
Infants
Legal objections
Male
Mammalia
Monkeys & apes
Motivation
Pan troglodytes
Pan troglodytes - psychology
Primates
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social interaction
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social psychology
Vertebrata
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Summary:Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1121448