Publication Date:
2009-08-15
Description:
During social interactions, humans often unconsciously and unintentionally imitate the behaviors of others, which increases rapport, liking, and empathy between interaction partners. This effect is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation that facilitates group living and may be shared with other primate species. Here, we show that capuchin monkeys, a highly social primate species, prefer human imitators over non-imitators in a variety of ways: The monkeys look longer at imitators, spend more time in proximity to imitators, and choose to interact more frequently with imitators in a token exchange task. These results demonstrate that imitation can promote affiliation in nonhuman primates. Behavior matching that leads to prosocial behaviors toward others may have been one of the mechanisms at the basis of altruistic behavioral tendencies in capuchins and in other primates, including humans.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2764469/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2764469/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Paukner, Annika -- Suomi, Stephen J -- Visalberghi, Elisabetta -- Ferrari, Pier F -- Z99 HD999999/Intramural NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 Aug 14;325(5942):880-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1176269.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Laboratory of Comparative Ethology, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health Animal Center, Post Office Box 529, Poolesville, MD 20837, USA. pauknera@mail.nih.gov〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19679816" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Cebus/*psychology
;
Female
;
Fixation, Ocular
;
Humans
;
*Imitative Behavior
;
Male
;
Recognition (Psychology)
;
*Social Behavior
;
Time Factors
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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