Feel good, do good? Disentangling reciprocity from unconditional prosociality. (17th July 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schmid, Res; Schneeberger, Karin; Taborsky, Michael
• Editors: Herberstein, M.
• Is Part Of: Ethology. Volume 123:Number 9(2017)
• Page Start: 640
• Page End: 647
• Publication Date: 2017-07-17
• Subjects: affective state -- cooperation -- decision‐making -- experience -- mood -- prosocial behaviour -- reciprocal altruism; Animal behavior -- Periodicals; 591.5
• DOI: 10.1111/eth.12636
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0179-1613

Abstract

Abstract: Direct and generalised reciprocity can establish evolutionarily stable levels of cooperation among unrelated individuals, with animals reciprocating help based on whether they have been helped by a social partner before. It has been argued that the actual cooperative act by a social partner may be of minor importance for seemingly reciprocal cooperation and that a mere positive experience might suffice to enhance helpful behaviour towards a conspecific ('feel good, do good'). However, this effect could easily be exploited by defectors free‐riding on an individual's enhanced propensity to cooperate after an unspecific positive experience, without investing in reciprocity themselves. Here, we use female Norway rats ( Rattus norvegicus ) to test if a positive experience that was not provided by a helping partner increases the propensity to subsequently help a social partner. We manipulated the experience of test subjects by providing them with treats, either in the presence or absence of a conspecific. Thereafter, we assessed whether they produce treats and if so, how many, for an unfamiliar social partner compared to a situation in which they had not received treats before. As the treats the test subject received had not been provided by a social partner even if the partner was present, we predicted that the rats should not be more cooperative after they had received treats than if they had not. Indeed, the helping behaviour of rats was apparently not influenced by prior experience made either in a social or non‐social context. Rats have been shown previously to perform both direct and generalised reciprocity in the same variant of the iterated prisoner's dilemma game. Our results suggest that this behaviour cannot be explained by an unspecific positive experience. The decision to help a social partner seems to be contingent on previously receiving help from a social partner (reciprocity), not on any positive experience (unconditional prosociality).