ArticleNature communications2016
The nature of prosociality in chimpanzees.
Article in Nature communications, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- To Share or Not to Share: Food Sharing in Wild Azure-Winged Magpie (Cyanopica cyanus).Integrative zoology · 2026Article
- Exploring the drivers of inter- and intraspecific differences in prosociality in four parrot species.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Challenges and promises of big team comparative cognition.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) strategically manipulate their environment to deny conspecifics access to food.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: towards a conceptual framework for comparative research.Animal cognition · 2024Review
- Prosociality in a despotic society.iScience · 2023Article
- Chimpanzees communicate to coordinate a cultural practice.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- A convergent interaction engine: vocal communication among marmoset monkeys.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Adult bonobos show no prosociality in both prosocial choice task and group service paradigm.PeerJ · 2022Article
- CalliFACS: The common marmoset Facial Action Coding System.PloS one · 2022Article
- Chimpanzees and bonobos use social leverage in an ultimatum game.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Targeted helping and cooperation in zoo-living chimpanzees and bonobos.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Impact of internal and external factors on prosocial choices in rhesus macaques.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Chimpanzees behave prosocially in a group-specific manner.Science advances · 2021Article
- A review of research in primate sanctuaries.Biology letters · 2020Review
- The zone of latent solutions and its relevance to understanding ape cultures.Biology & philosophy · 2020Article
- Why intergroup variation matters for understanding behaviour.Biology letters · 2019Article
- Population-specific social dynamics in chimpanzees.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Bonobos voluntarily hand food to others but not toys or tools.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Correspondence: Reply to 'Chimpanzee helping is real, not a byproduct'.Nature communications · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
An important debate centres around the nature of prosociality in nonhuman primates. Chimpanzees help other individuals in some experimental settings, yet they do not readily share food. One solution to this paradox is that they are motivated to help others provided there are no competing interests. However, benefits to recipients could arise as by-products of testing. Here we report two studies that separate by-product from intended helping in chimpanzees using a GO/NO-GO paradigm. Actors in one group could help a recipient by releasing a food box, but the same action for another group prevented a recipient from being able to get food. We find no evidence for helping-chimpanzees engaged in the test regardless of the effects on their partners. Illusory prosocial behaviour could arise as a by-product of task design.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.