Children share when they work together, chimps do not

[one...two...tree 2,762]

We are a cooperative ape, and a fair one. We work together to put food on the table and once it’s there, social rules compel us to share it around equitably. These two actions are tied to one another. In a new study, Katharina Hamann from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has shown that three-year-old children are more likely to fairly divide their spoils with other kids if they’ve worked together to get them. The same can’t be said of chimpanzees, one of our closest relatives. Sharing comes less naturally to them, and it doesn’t become any more likely if they’ve worked together to get a meal.

Hamann says, “Among great apes, only humans are true collaborative foragers.” Other species might look for food together, but being next to one another is not the same as working together. The only exception are the hunting parties of chimps, where several individuals work together to kill monkeys for food. The slain monkeys are shared, but either under duress or in exchange for favours.

With children, things are very different. Studies have shown that children as young as five to seven start sharing resources fairly among one another. On the other hand, when younger children come across a windfall of sweets, they tend to keep the majority for themselves. It’s tempting to think that children only develop a sharing ethic when they approach school age, but Hamann realised that something was missing.

more....

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/07/20/children-share-when-they-work-together-chimps-do-not/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NotRocketScience+%28Not+Exactly+Rocket+Science%29

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

This MUST mean we are not descended from chimps and there IS a God. Or not.

I hope this was not paid for by money confiscated from my pay in order to make me feel better about "sharing" what I earn with people that do nothing.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I hope this was not paid for by money confiscated from my pay in order to make me feel better about "sharing" what I earn with people that do nothing.

No, your lousy few tax pennies didn't pay for this. The Max Planck Institute is a German institution with several branches all over that country and funded mainly with German public funds - yes, Germany still supports sciences and research. Folks there are not quite as short-sighted as they are on this side of the big pond. Anyway, fair resource distribution has nothing to do with you sharing what you earn with those that do nothing. You'd be able to grasp that if you weren't so paranoid or, according to this (and other) studies, if you weren't so apelike.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Mr. Big Dog

[rika60607 215]

Did Katharina account for the fact that those children were raised by their human mothers who taught them to share?

I bet Bonobos (nearest relative of chimps) share... it could be just a cultural thing

"Primatologist Frans de Waal states that bonobos are capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience, and sensitivity. How peaceful bonobos are has been disputed by some." Wiki

[Obama 2012 1,714]

they key point is the last part of the article and why the study is a waste of time/money/effort.

They didn't test the children and the chimps on a common playing field.

Marbles vs Food are two very different things.

The guy who did this study is an idiot if he actually came up with a conclusion from the items used.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

No, your lousy few tax pennies didn't pay for this. The Max Planck Institute is a German institution with several branches all over that country and funded mainly with German public funds - yes, Germany still supports sciences and research. Folks there are not quite as short-sighted as they are on this side of the big pond. Anyway, fair resource distribution has nothing to do with you sharing what you earn with those that do nothing. You'd be able to grasp that if you weren't so paranoid or, according to this (and other) studies, if you weren't so apelike.

He gets paid under the table and thus pays no taxes, remember. More of his Simian nature, I suppose.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

No, your lousy few tax pennies didn't pay for this. The Max Planck Institute is a German institution with several branches all over that country and funded mainly with German public funds - yes, Germany still supports sciences and research. Folks there are not quite as short-sighted as they are on this side of the big pond. Anyway, fair resource distribution has nothing to do with you sharing what you earn with those that do nothing. You'd be able to grasp that if you weren't so paranoid or, according to this (and other) studies, if you weren't so apelike.

Big Dog just pwned Gary.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

This MUST mean we are not descended from chimps and there IS a God. Or not.

I hope this was not paid for by money confiscated from my pay in order to make me feel better about "sharing" what I earn with people that do nothing.

I think it may mean that you didn't read the article.

[Fandango 1,439]

So to recap:

Play with kids, not chimps!

[웃 910]

from the Max Planck Institute

I like this Max Planck guy:

A solution to the one-dimensional Fokker–Planck equation, with both the drift and the diffusion term. The initial condition is a Dirac delta function in x = 1, and the distribution drifts towards the left.

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The Fokker–Planck equation describes the time evolution of the probability density function of the velocity of a particle, and can be generalized to other observables as well.^[1] It is named after Adriaan Fokker^[2] and Max Planck^[3] and is also known as the Kolmogorov forward equation (diffusion), named after Andrey Kolmogorov, who first introduced it in a 1931 paper.^[4] When applied to particle position distributions, it is better known as the Smoluchowski equation.

The first consistent microscopic derivation of the Fokker–Planck equation in the single scheme of classical and quantum mechanics was performed^[5] by Nikolay Bogoliubov and Nikolay Krylov.^[6]

In one spatial dimension x, the Fokker–Planck equation for a process with Ito drift D₁(x,t) and diffusion D₂(x,t) is

More generally, the time-dependent probability distribution may depend on a set of N macrovariables x_i. The general form of the Fokker–Planck equation is then

where D¹ is the drift vector and D² the diffusion tensor; the latter results from the presence of the stochastic force.