Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches

Abstract Reciprocal altruism, the most probable mechanism for cooperation among unrelated individuals, can be modelled as a Prisoner’s Dilemma. This game predicts that cooperation should evolve whenever the players, who expect to interact repeatedly, make choices contingent to their partner’s behavi...

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Autores principales:	Camille Chia, Frédérique Dubois
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/9b8618cd0f7a469daa3c5533fefffa99
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:9b8618cd0f7a469daa3c5533fefffa992021-12-02T12:32:38ZImpulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches10.1038/s41598-017-09072-w2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/9b8618cd0f7a469daa3c5533fefffa992017-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09072-whttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Reciprocal altruism, the most probable mechanism for cooperation among unrelated individuals, can be modelled as a Prisoner’s Dilemma. This game predicts that cooperation should evolve whenever the players, who expect to interact repeatedly, make choices contingent to their partner’s behaviour. Experimental evidence, however, indicates that reciprocity is rare among animals. One reason for this would be that animals are very impulsive compared to humans. Several studies have reported that temporal discounting (that is, strong preferences for immediate benefits) has indeed a negative impact on the occurrence of cooperation. Yet, the role of impulsive action, another facet of impulsiveness, remains unexplored. Here, we conducted a laboratory experiment in which male and female zebra finches (Taenyopigia guttata) were paired assortatively with respect to their level of impulsive action and then played an alternating Prisoner’s Dilemma. As anticipated, we found that self-controlled pairs achieved high levels of cooperation by using a Generous Tit-for-Tat strategy, while impulsive birds that cooperated at a lower level, chose to cooperate with a fixed probability. If the inability of impulsive individuals to use reactive strategies are due to their reduced working memory capacity, thus our findings might contribute to explaining interspecific differences in cooperative behaviour.Camille ChiaFrédérique DuboisNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Camille Chia Frédérique Dubois Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
description	Abstract Reciprocal altruism, the most probable mechanism for cooperation among unrelated individuals, can be modelled as a Prisoner’s Dilemma. This game predicts that cooperation should evolve whenever the players, who expect to interact repeatedly, make choices contingent to their partner’s behaviour. Experimental evidence, however, indicates that reciprocity is rare among animals. One reason for this would be that animals are very impulsive compared to humans. Several studies have reported that temporal discounting (that is, strong preferences for immediate benefits) has indeed a negative impact on the occurrence of cooperation. Yet, the role of impulsive action, another facet of impulsiveness, remains unexplored. Here, we conducted a laboratory experiment in which male and female zebra finches (Taenyopigia guttata) were paired assortatively with respect to their level of impulsive action and then played an alternating Prisoner’s Dilemma. As anticipated, we found that self-controlled pairs achieved high levels of cooperation by using a Generous Tit-for-Tat strategy, while impulsive birds that cooperated at a lower level, chose to cooperate with a fixed probability. If the inability of impulsive individuals to use reactive strategies are due to their reduced working memory capacity, thus our findings might contribute to explaining interspecific differences in cooperative behaviour.
format	article
author	Camille Chia Frédérique Dubois
author_facet	Camille Chia Frédérique Dubois
author_sort	Camille Chia
title	Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
title_short	Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
title_full	Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
title_fullStr	Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
title_full_unstemmed	Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
title_sort	impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/9b8618cd0f7a469daa3c5533fefffa99
work_keys_str_mv	AT camillechia impulsivenessdoesnotpreventcooperationfromemergingbutreducesitsoccurrenceanexperimentwithzebrafinches AT frederiquedubois impulsivenessdoesnotpreventcooperationfromemergingbutreducesitsoccurrenceanexperimentwithzebrafinches
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Impulsiveness does not prevent cooperation from emerging but reduces its occurrence: an experiment with zebra finches

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