Social evaluations and decision making in human and nonhuman primates

• Applicant: Dr. Stefanie Keupp
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425330201

Social evaluations are a pervasive feature of human thinking. Evaluations of others’ characteristics and behaviors inform our decisions whom to trust, who to work with, who to learn from, or who to compare to in current as well as future encounters. Early competences to base social decisions on the observation of others’ past behavior emerge within the first year of life and children become skilled social decision makers in their preschool years. To this end, several cognitive strategies come into consideration; specifically, one can (i) use past behavior to predict the occurrence of matching behavior, (ii) use past behavior to generalize to other behaviors or characteristics, or (iii) engage in selective trait reasoning where information about several characteristics is used selectively to predict relevant behavior in a given context. Recent studies found that 4-year-olds can engage in rational trait reasoning and selectively choose co-players who had previously demonstrated task-relevant domain specific competences in cooperative experimental scenarios. Nonhuman primates also have excellent skills in navigating their natural social environments by using their past experiences to predict others’ matching behavior in the future. However, less is known about what nonhuman primates understand of other individuals’ characteristics, how these impressions are formed, and how individuals use them to their advantage. For example, can nonhuman primates form detailed impressions of others that would allow for social comparison of particular characteristics or for learning about task-specific competences from particularly skilled others? Both are useful skills for social living primates who navigate in environments with constant competition for resources. To compare the propensities for social evaluations in human and nonhuman primates I will test preschool-aged children and three species of nonhuman primates: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana). This study will contribute to a better understanding of an important facet of human social cognition and its evolutionary trajectory: forming differentiated and sophisticated evaluations of other agents. The experiments will provide insights into the underlying cognitive strategies to gain social knowledge about other agents, and into whether they use social information differently (e.g. preferentially in cooperative or competitive settings).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Co-Investigators: Professorin Dr. Julia Fischer; Dr. Esther Herrmann; Professor Dr. Johannes Rakoczy
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Helene Meunier