ArticleAnimal cognition2020
Marmoset prosociality is intentional.
Article in Animal cognition, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Revisiting Infanticide in Non-Human Primates Reveals a Similar Likelihood of Male and Female Perpetrators.American journal of primatology · 2026Pooled it
- Ecological factors affecting prosociality in marmoset monkeys.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Primate ACC encodes natural vocal interactions in a 'cocktail party'.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Diverse and flexible strategies enable successful cooperation in marmoset dyads.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Maynard Smith revisited: A multi-agent reinforcement learning approach to the coevolution of signalling behaviour.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- CalliCog is an open-source cognitive neuroscience toolkit for freely behaving nonhuman primates.Cell reports methods · 2025Article
- Do goats exhibit prosocial motivation? Insights from a novel food-giving paradigm.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Beyond bigrams: call sequencing in the common marmoset (Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- The proximate regulation of prosocial behaviour: towards a conceptual framework for comparative research.Animal cognition · 2024Review
- Long range projections of oxytocin neurons in the marmoset brain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Flexible signalling strategies by victims mediate post-conflict interactions in bonobos.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- A convergent interaction engine: vocal communication among marmoset monkeys.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Awareness and consciousness in humans and animals - neural and behavioral correlates in an evolutionary perspective.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2022Article
- CalliFACS: The common marmoset Facial Action Coding System.PloS one · 2022Article
- Sex differences in cognitive aging: a 4-year longitudinal study in marmosets.Neurobiology of aging · 2022Article
- Monkey see, monkey feel? Marmoset reactions towards conspecifics' arousal.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Navigating in a challenging semiarid environment: the use of a route-based mental map by a small-bodied neotropical primate.Animal cognition · 2021Article
- Prosocial and antisocial choices in a monogamous cichlid with biparental care.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Owner attention facilitates social play in dog-dog dyads (Canis lupus familiaris): evidence for an interspecific audience effect.Animal cognition · 2021Article
- Natural and Experimental Evidence Drives Marmosets for Research on Psychiatric Disorders Related to Stress.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Marmoset monkeys show high levels of proactive prosociality, a trait shared with humans, presumably because both species rely on allomaternal care. However, it is not clear whether the proximate regulation of this convergent trait is also similar, in particular with regard to intentionality, which is a defining characteristic of prosocial behavior in the human literature. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether marmoset monkeys' prosociality fulfils the criteria of intentionality developed in primate communication research. The results show that marmoset prosocial behavior (i) has some degree of flexibility, since individuals can use multiple means to reach their goal and adjust them to specific conditions, (ii) depends on the presence of an audience, i.e. potential recipients (social use), and (iii) is goal-directed, because (a) it continues exactly until the putative goal is reached, and (b) individuals check back and look at/for their partner when their prosocial actions do not achieve the putative goal (i.e. if their actions don't lead to the expected outcome, this elicits distinct reactions in the actor). These results suggest that marmoset prosociality is under some degree of voluntary, intentional control. They are in line with other findings that marmosets perceive each other as intentional agents, and only learn socially from actions that are perceived as intentional. The most parsimonious conclusion is, therefore, that prosocial behavior is fundamentally under voluntary control in marmosets, just as it is in humans, even though our more sophisticated cognitive abilities allow for a far more complex integration of prosociality into a broader variety of contexts and of behavioral goals.
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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.