ArticleScience advances2023
Biased cultural transmission of a social custom in chimpanzees.
Article in Science advances, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Freedom of choice supports social complexity in chimpanzees.iScience · 2026Article
- Rank and payoff biases influence subject choices in a foraging task among sanctuary chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Brokering peace in the ape (culture) wars.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Social tolerance and role model diversity increase tool use learning opportunities across chimpanzee ontogeny.Communications biology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cultural transmission studies in animals have predominantly focused on identifying between-group variation in tool-use techniques, while immaterial cultures remain understudied despite their potential for highlighting similarities between human and animal culture. Here, using long-term data from two chimpanzee communities, we tested whether one of chimpanzees' most enigmatic social customs-the grooming handclasp-is culturally transmitted by investigating the influence of well-documented human transmission biases on their variational preferences. After identifying differences in style preferences between the communities, we show that older and dominant individuals exert more influence over their partners' handclasp styles. Mothers were equally likely to influence their offspring's preferences as nonkin, indicating that styles are transmitted both vertically and obliquely. Last, individuals gradually converged on the group style, suggesting that conformity guides chimpanzees' handclasp preferences. Our findings show that chimpanzees' social lives are influenced by cultural transmission biases that hitherto were thought to be uniquely human.
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