ArticleScientific reports2021
Rats show direct reciprocity when interacting with multiple partners.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Experience-dependent modulation of prosocial touch in mice.iScience · 2026Article
- Fraternal cooperation of hierarchical cancer parallels metazoan multicellularity and eusociality.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Experimental evidence for social learning in semi-natural, wild-type Norway rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A rat model of volitional mutual social interactions.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Reciprocity evolves more readily in competitive than cooperative socio-ecologies.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Exploring rodent prosociality: A conceptual framework.Translational neuroscience · 2025Review
- Norway rats recruit cooperation partners based on previous receipt of help while disregarding kinship.iScience · 2024Article
- Human and nonhuman norms: a dimensional framework.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Assessment of help value affects reciprocation in Norway rats.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- The paradox of cooperation among selfish cancer cells.Evolutionary applications · 2023Review
- Comparative economics: how studying other primates helps us better understand the evolution of our own economic decision making.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Evidence suggesting that reindeer mothers allonurse according to the direct reciprocity and generalized reciprocity decision rules.PloS one · 2023Article
- Azure-winged Magpies would rather avoid losses than strive for benefits based on reciprocal altruism.Animal cognition · 2022Article
- Egg-trading worms start reciprocation with caution, respond with confidence and care about partners' quality.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Reaching Out for Inaccessible Food Is a Potential Begging Signal in Cooperating Wild-Type Norway Rats,Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Rats play tit-for-tat instead of integrating social experience over multiple interactions.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Direct reciprocity, where individuals apply the decision rule 'help someone who has helped you', is believed to be rare in non-human animals due to its high cognitive demands. Especially if previous encounters with several partners need to be correctly remembered, animals might either stop reciprocating favours previously received from an individual, or switch to the simpler generalized reciprocity mechanism. Here we tested the decision rules Norway rats apply when interacting with multiple partners before being able to return received help. In a sequential prisoner's dilemma situation, focal subjects encountered four different partners that were either helpful or not, on four consecutive days. On the fifth day, the focal subject was paired with one of the previous four partners and given the opportunity to provide it with food. The focal rats returned received help by closely matching the quantity of help their partner had previously provided, independently of the time delay between received and given help, and independently of the ultimate interaction preceding the test. This shows that direct reciprocity is not limited to dyadic situations in Norway rats, suggesting that cognitive demands involved in applying the required decision rules can be met by non-human animals even when they interact with multiple partners differing in helping propensity.
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