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Animal cognition
Mar 02, 2024;27 (1): 5.

The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: towards a conceptual framework for comparative research.

Kathrin S Kopp, Patricia Kanngiesser, Rahel K Brügger, Moritz M Daum, Anja Gampe, Moritz Köster, Carel P van Schaik, Katja Liebal, Judith M Burkart
Author Information
  1. Kathrin S Kopp: Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. kathrin_kopp@eva.mpg.de. ORCID
  2. Patricia Kanngiesser: Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. ORCID
  3. Rahel K Brügger: Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. ORCID
  4. Moritz M Daum: Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. ORCID
  5. Anja Gampe: Institute of Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany. ORCID
  6. Moritz Köster: Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. ORCID
  7. Carel P van Schaik: Department of Evolutionary Biology & Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. ORCID
  8. Katja Liebal: Life Sciences, Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany. ORCID
  9. Judith M Burkart: Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. ORCID
PMID: 38429436 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01846-w

Abstract

Humans and many other animal species act in ways that benefit others. Such prosocial behaviour has been studied extensively across a range of disciplines over the last decades, but findings to date have led to conflicting conclusions about prosociality across and even within species. Here, we present a conceptual framework to study the proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour in humans, non-human primates and potentially other animals. We build on psychological definitions of prosociality and spell out three key features that need to be in place for behaviour to count as prosocial: benefitting others, intentionality, and voluntariness. We then apply this framework to review observational and experimental studies on sharing behaviour and targeted helping in human children and non-human primates. We show that behaviours that are usually subsumed under the same terminology (e.g. helping) can differ substantially across and within species and that some of them do not fulfil our criteria for prosociality. Our framework allows for precise mapping of prosocial behaviours when retrospectively evaluating studies and offers guidelines for future comparative work.

Keywords

Comparative research Helping Human children Primates Prosocial behaviour Sharing

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Grants

  1. Joint Seed Money/Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
  2. Joint Seed Money/University of Zurich, Switzerland

MeSH Term

Humans
Animals
Altruism
Social Behavior
Retrospective Studies
Primates
Journal Article Review
Article has an altmetric score of 12

Word Cloud

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