ArticleAmerican journal of primatology2020
Low relationship quality predicts scratch contagion during tense situations in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).
Article in American journal of primatology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- The play fever: individual and group factors influence the contagion of play behaviour within social hominid groups.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- The development of play face mimicry: comparative insights from human infants, adults and orangutans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Behavioral Contagion in Wild Ecuadorian White-Fronted Capuchins (Cebus aequatorialis).American journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Monkeys increase scratching when encountering unexpected good fortune.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Affective bodily responses in monkeys predict subsequent pessimism, but not vice versa.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Emotions spread like contagious diseases.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Contagious yawning and scratching in captive lemurs.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Novel automated method to assess group dynamics reveals deficits in behavioral contagion in rats with social deficits.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2024Article
- Article
- The Reward-Related Shift of Emotional Contagion from the Observer's Perspective Correlates to Their Intimacy with the Expresser.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Yawning and scratching contagion in wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- How video calls affect mimicry and trust during interactions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- No Evidence for Biased Attention Towards Emotional Scenes in Bornean Orangutans (Affective science · 2022Article
- Robert Provine: the critical human importance of laughter, connections and contagion.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- "Emotional Proximity" and "Spatial Proximity": Higher Relationship Quality and Nearer Distance Both Strengthen Scratch Contagion in Tibetan Macaques.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Island Life: Use of Activity Budgets and Visibility to Evaluate a Multi-Species Within-Zoo Exhibit Move.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Social contagion of affiliation in female macaques.Royal Society open science · 2021Article
- Experimental evidence for yawn contagion in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Physiological synchrony is associated with cooperative success in real-life interactions.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Low relationship quality predicts scratch contagion during tense situations in orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).American journal of primatology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
Primates show various forms of behavioral contagion that are stronger between kin and friends. As a result, behavioral contagion is thought to promote group coordination, social cohesion, and possibly state matching. Aside from contagious yawning, little is known about the contagious effect of other behaviors. Scratching is commonly observed during arousal and as such may play a role within group dynamics. While the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is commonly considered the least social great ape, orangutans do engage in social interactions. Therefore, their social organization makes them a suitable case for studying the social function of behavioral contagion. Through behavioral observations of captive orangutans, we recorded all yawn and scratch events together with the corresponding behavior of all bystander group-members. As yawning was rarely observed, no conclusions could be drawn regarding this behavior. Scratching was contagious and occurred within 90 s after the triggering scratch. Specifically, orangutans showed increased scratch contagion when they had seen a weakly bonded individual scratch during tense contexts. When the orangutan had not seen the triggering scratch, the contagiousness of scratching was not affected by context or relationship quality. Our results indicate that behavioral contagion is not simply higher between individuals with stronger social relationships, but that the contagiousness of behaviors may vary based on the context and on social factors. We discuss these findings in light of an adaptive function that may reduce aggression.
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