Cronin Katherine A, Schroeder Kori K E, Rothwell Emily S, Silk Joan B, Snowdon Charles T
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
J Comp Psychol. 2009 Aug;123(3):231-41. doi: 10.1037/a0015094.
This study tested the hypothesis that cooperative breeding facilitates the emergence of prosocial behavior by presenting cottontop tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) with the option to provide food rewards to pair-bonded mates. In Experiment 1, tamarins could provide rewards to mates at no additional cost while obtaining rewards for themselves. Contrary to the hypothesis, tamarins did not demonstrate a preference to donate rewards, behaving similar to chimpanzees in previous studies. In Experiment 2, the authors eliminated rewards for the donor for a stricter test of prosocial behavior, while reducing separation distress and food preoccupation. Again, the authors found no evidence for a donation preference. Furthermore, tamarins were significantly less likely to deliver rewards to mates when the mate displayed interest in the reward. The results of this study contrast with those recently reported for cooperatively breeding common marmosets, and indicate that prosocial preferences in a food donation task do not emerge in all cooperative breeders. In previous studies, cottontop tamarins have cooperated and reciprocated to obtain food rewards; the current findings sharpen understanding of the boundaries of cottontop tamarins' food-provisioning behavior.
本研究通过向棉顶狨猴（Saguinus oedipus）提供向配偶提供食物奖励的选项，来检验合作繁殖促进亲社会行为出现的假设。在实验1中，狨猴可以在不增加额外成本的情况下向配偶提供奖励，同时自己也能获得奖励。与假设相反，狨猴没有表现出捐赠奖励的偏好，其行为与先前研究中的黑猩猩相似。在实验2中，作者取消了对捐赠者的奖励，以更严格地测试亲社会行为，同时减少分离痛苦和对食物的关注。作者再次没有发现捐赠偏好的证据。此外，当配偶对奖励表现出兴趣时，狨猴向配偶提供奖励的可能性显著降低。本研究的结果与最近报道的合作繁殖普通狨猴的结果形成对比，表明在食物捐赠任务中的亲社会偏好并非在所有合作繁殖者中都会出现。在先前的研究中，棉顶狨猴曾合作并相互回报以获得食物奖励；目前的研究结果加深了对棉顶狨猴食物供应行为界限的理解。
