TY - JOUR
T1 - Cooperation and partner choice among Agta hunter-gatherer children
T2 - An evolutionary developmental perspective
AU - Major-Smith, Daniel
AU - Chaudhary, Nikhil
AU - Dyble, Mark
AU - Major-Smith, Katie
AU - Page, Abigail E.
AU - Salali, Gul Deniz
AU - Mace, Ruth
AU - Migliano, Andrea B.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Public Library of Science. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/4
Y1 - 2023/4
N2 - Examining development is essential for a full understanding of behaviour, including how individuals acquire traits and how adaptive evolutionary forces shape these processes. The present study explores the development of cooperative behaviour among the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population. A simple resource allocation game assessing both levels of cooperation (how much children shared) and patterns of partner choice (who they shared with) was played with 179 children between the ages of 3 and 18. Children were given five resources (candies) and for each was asked whether to keep it for themselves or share with someone else, and if so, who this was. Between-camp variation in children's cooperative behaviour was substantial, and the only strong predictor of children's cooperation was the average level of cooperation among adults in camp; that is, children were more cooperative in camps where adults were more cooperative. Neither age, sex, relatedness or parental levels of cooperation were strongly associated with the amount children shared. Children preferentially shared with close kin (especially siblings), although older children increasingly shared with less-related individuals. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding cross-cultural patterns of children's cooperation, and broader links with human cooperative childcare and life history volution.
AB - Examining development is essential for a full understanding of behaviour, including how individuals acquire traits and how adaptive evolutionary forces shape these processes. The present study explores the development of cooperative behaviour among the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population. A simple resource allocation game assessing both levels of cooperation (how much children shared) and patterns of partner choice (who they shared with) was played with 179 children between the ages of 3 and 18. Children were given five resources (candies) and for each was asked whether to keep it for themselves or share with someone else, and if so, who this was. Between-camp variation in children's cooperative behaviour was substantial, and the only strong predictor of children's cooperation was the average level of cooperation among adults in camp; that is, children were more cooperative in camps where adults were more cooperative. Neither age, sex, relatedness or parental levels of cooperation were strongly associated with the amount children shared. Children preferentially shared with close kin (especially siblings), although older children increasingly shared with less-related individuals. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding cross-cultural patterns of children's cooperation, and broader links with human cooperative childcare and life history volution.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153981212&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0284360
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0284360
M3 - Article
C2 - 37099506
AN - SCOPUS:85153981212
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 18
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 4 April
M1 - e0284360
ER -