Evolution of prosocial behavior: a meta-analysis and new experiments

• Applicants: Dr. Claudia Fichtel; Professor Dr. Peter M. Kappeler
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509793338

Prosocial behavior is perhaps the most important glue that holds human societies together, but various forms of interactions in which an individual provides a benefit to one or more conspecifics are also found in many animal societies. Despite numerous experimental studies of prosocial behavior in mammals and birds, however, there are as yet no consensual explanations for its evolutionary causes. In this project, we aim to systematically evaluate the results of existing studies using a meta-analysis on the one hand, and to conduct additional experiments with primates, carnivores, and rodents with different social systems on the other hand. With the meta-analysis we investigate how much variation in prosocial behavior is explained by different experimental approaches and different experimental choice options. Our own preliminary experiments suggest that it might be important to distinguish between selfless and mutualistic prosocial behavior. The former appears to be associated with cooperative and communal breeding, whereas the latter is more widely distributed and may provide the basis for cooperative behavior among group-living species. With this approach, we can determine the relative explanatory value of species differences in social organization, type of parental care, social tolerance and cognitive abilities for the distribution of selfless and mutualistic prosocial behavior. To this end, we compare the identically measured selfless and mutualistic prosocial behavior of eight mammalian species that differ in their social organization and care system. With this systematic and controlled comparative approach, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of the causes and consequences of prosocial behavior, which has not been possible until now due to inconsistent terminology, study methods, and levels of explanation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants