Lambert, Megan Leona, Massen, Jorg, Seed, Amanda et al. (2 more authors) (2017) An ‘unkindness’ of ravens? Measuring prosocial preferences in Corvus corax. ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR. pp. 383-393. ISSN 0003-3472
Abstract
In recent years there has been considerable research effort to determine whether other species exhibit prosocial motivations parallel to those of humans; however these studies have focused primarily on primates, and with mixed results. We presented captive ravens with a modified prosocial choice task which aimed to address several criticisms of previous methods by including a stringent pre-training regime and a setup that disentangles motivation to provision a conspecific from motivation to feed next to one. In this task subjects (N=6) received no rewards for themselves but could choose to deliver food rewards to either a conspecific or an empty, inaccessible compartment. Subjects did not demonstrate any prosocial tendencies (i.e., they did not preferentially choose to reward a conspecific over the empty compartment), and instead often ceased pulling on test trials when they received nothing for themselves (up to 70% of 80 trials with a partner present, up to 83% of 40 trials in a non-social control condition). The relationship between the subject and the partner had no influence on the subject’s choices; however subjects were more likely to pull immediately after performing socio-agonistic displays. Our results contribute to a growing body of evidence that despite their sophisticated social cognitive abilities and range of cooperative behaviours exhibited in the wild, un-paired (or unbonded) ravens do not seem to act to benefit conspecifics in the absence of immediate self-gain.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016, The Author(s). |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 09 Jan 2017 11:30 |
Last Modified: | 23 Feb 2025 00:04 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.11.018 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.11.018 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:110249 |
Download
Filename: Lambert_et_al._Raven_Prosocial_Manuscript_AUTHOR_FINAL_VERSION.docx
Description: Lambert et al. Raven Prosocial Manuscript AUTHOR FINAL VERSION
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 2.5