Evidence of joint commitment in great apes’ natural joint actions

Heesen, R.; Zuberbühler, K.; Bangerter, A.; Iglesias, K.; Rossano, F.; Pajot, A.; Guéry, J.P.; Genty, E.

doi:10.1098/rsos.211121

Evidence of joint commitment in great apes’ natural joint actions

Heesen, R.; Zuberbühler, K.; Bangerter, A.; Iglesias, K.; Rossano, F.; Pajot, A.; Guéry, J.P.; Genty, E.

Authors

Raphaela Heesen raphaela.m.heesen@durham.ac.uk
Post Doctoral Research Associate

K. Zuberbühler

A. Bangerter

K. Iglesias

F. Rossano

A. Pajot

J.P. Guéry

E. Genty

Abstract

Human joint action seems special, as it is grounded in joint commitment—a sense of mutual obligation participants feel towards each other. Comparative research with humans and non-human great apes has typically investigated joint commitment by experimentally interrupting joint actions to study subjects’ resumption strategies. However, such experimental interruptions are human-induced, and thus the question remains of how great apes naturally handle interruptions. Here, we focus on naturally occurring interruptions of joint actions, grooming and play, in bonobos and chimpanzees. Similar to humans, both species frequently resumed interrupted joint actions (and the previous behaviours, like grooming the same body part region or playing the same play type) with their previous partners and at the previous location. Yet, the probability of resumption attempts was unaffected by social bonds or rank. Our data suggest that great apes experience something akin to joint commitment, for which we discuss possible evolutionary origins.

Citation

Heesen, R., Zuberbühler, K., Bangerter, A., Iglesias, K., Rossano, F., Pajot, A., …Genty, E. (2021). Evidence of joint commitment in great apes’ natural joint actions. Royal Society Open Science, 8(12), Article 211121. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211121

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 8, 2021
Online Publication Date	Dec 8, 2021
Publication Date	2021-12
Deposit Date	Dec 13, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Feb 2, 2022
Journal	Royal Society Open Science
Publisher	The Royal Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	8
Issue	12
Article Number	211121
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211121

Files

Published Journal Article (612 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors.

Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.