What matters for cooperation? The importance of social relationship over cognition

Cooperation is vital for the survival of many species and has been extensively researched at the ultimate level however, there is a considerable degree of variation within a given species in the extent of cooperative behaviours exhibited. Possible factors that have been discussed to contribute to th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2020-07, Vol.10 (1), p.11778, Article 11778
Main Authors: Dale, Rachel, Marshall-Pescini, Sarah, Range, Friederike
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/181/2469
631/477
Animals
Aversion
Behavior, Animal
Cognition
Cognitive ability
Cooperation
Cooperative Behavior
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Humanities and Social Sciences
Interpersonal Relations
Motivation
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Social Behavior
Social discrimination learning
Social factors
Social interactions
Species
Wolves
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Summary:Cooperation is vital for the survival of many species and has been extensively researched at the ultimate level however, there is a considerable degree of variation within a given species in the extent of cooperative behaviours exhibited. Possible factors that have been discussed to contribute to this variation are the social relationship between the cooperating individuals, but also non-social factors such as inhibitory control. Investigating the performance of wolves, a highly cooperative species, in three experimental cooperative tasks; a coordination (string-pulling) task, a prosocial task and an inequity aversion task, we found that the social relationship between the partners had the largest effects on all tasks, while non-social factors (inhibition, learning speed, causal understanding and persistence) had rather unpredicted, or no effects. The results support the potential importance of relational factors, rather than motivation and cognitive abilities, in driving cooperative interactions.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-68734-4