RESUMEN
Cooperative problem solving (CPS) is an essential ability in people's daily life. When individuals with different problem-solvers' characteristics (orientation and style) are assigned to different group sizes to solve social tasks, what are the differences in the performance of CPS ability? Based on this, through online experimental tasks, the present study examined the effect of problem-solving orientation and style on CPS ability in online social tasks. Meanwhile, it explored the role of group sizes as an environmental variable. The results showed that the more positive the problem-solving orientation, the better the performance of individual CPS ability. In addition, the more rational the problem-solving styles and the larger the group sizes, the higher the scores of participants' CPS ability. This study provides a new theoretical perspective for the complex relationship between the characteristics of problem solvers and CPS ability, and also provides empirical support for the cultivation of the CPS ability of adolescents.
Asunto(s)
Solución de Problemas , Humanos , AdolescenteRESUMEN
Several scholars have long suggested that human language and remarkable communicative abilities originate from the need and motivation to cooperate and coordinate actions with others. Yet, little work has focused on when and how great apes communicate during joint action tasks, partly because of the widely held assumption that animal communication is mostly manipulative, but also because non-human great apes' default motivation seems to be competitive rather than cooperative. Here, we review experimental cooperative tasks and show how situational challenges and the degree of asymmetry in terms of knowledge relevant for the joint action task affect the likelihood of communication. We highlight how physical proximity and strength of social bond between the participants affect the occurrence and type of communication. Lastly, we highlight how, from a production point of view, communicators appear capable of calibrating their signalling and controlling their delivery, showing clear evidence of first-order intentionality. On the other hand, recipients appear to struggle in terms of making use of referential information received. We discuss different hypotheses accounting for this asymmetry and provide suggestions concerning how future work could help us unveil to what degree the need for cooperation has shaped our closest living relatives' communicative behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.
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Hominidae , Comunicación Animal , Animales , Humanos , Lenguaje , MotivaciónRESUMEN
Due to the diversity of the phenomenon, dolphin cooperation has attracted considerable research interest in both wild populations and those under human care. Dolphins cooperate in various contexts, including group hunting, alloparental care, social learning, social play and alliance formation for securing mates. This investigation focused on the effect of group size and partner choice in a cooperative task using systematic group testing. A cooperative enrichment device was made of a PVC tube containing fish and ice that was temporarily sealed with two PVC caps with rope handles attached. The device was designed to be operated by pairs of dolphins, opened by simultaneous pull of its two handles. The analysis focused on two behaviours, cooperative opening and cooperative play with the device. Testing focused on an adult male dolphin group including four to six individuals and using a single or two devices. Altogether five group testing arrangements and a pairwise testing phase were conducted. Out of the six dolphins, five showed active involvement. All ten possible pairs of the five active dolphins were successful in opening and playing with the device cooperatively. Cooperation increased with group size, but the social networks showed no significant differences among group arrangements. However, the cooperative pairs showed a significant difference in success rate during pairwise vs group testing, while demonstrating a strong partner preference. This study provides the first evidence for partner choice with regards to cooperation in male dolphins.
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Delfín Mular , Animales , MasculinoRESUMEN
Social living, long lifespan and advanced cognitive skills provided favourable conditions for the development of pro-social behaviours and cooperative activities in cetacean. Dolphins have been observed to collaborate for various purposes, finding food, finding mates or raising and teaching younger individuals. This study investigated the potential impact of demographic factors (sex and age), social factors (relatedness and group size), and individual experience in a cooperative problem solving task. A cognitive enrichment device was tested with 22 dolphins in 11 group settings. The device consisted of a tube, containing ice and fish, sealed by two caps with rope handles and designed to be operated by pairs of dolphins. The investigation focused on the differences in trial outcome (success rate of cooperative opening of the device) and on cooperative play (dolphin pairs engaging in synchronous swim with the device). From the five potential factors, sex showed the highest impact. Cooperative openings were more than four times more frequent in males than in females (75% vs 17%, respectively), and cooperative play was exclusively displayed by adult males. Given the strong correlation between cooperative opening and cooperative play, we argue the two behaviours can be regarded as parts of a cooperative action chain. This study provides the first evidence for intersexual differences in collaborative actions in dolphins under systematic testing conditions.
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Delfín Mular , Animales , Cognición , Femenino , Masculino , Solución de Problemas , Conducta Social , NataciónRESUMEN
Cooperative interactions vary in complexity. The emotional reactivity hypothesis posits that cooperative complexity is constrained by social intolerance. Relaxed social constraints should thereby increase cooperative flexibility and have been proposed as a key step in cognitive evolution. Lions (Panthera leo) are an ideal candidate for investigating cooperative complexity and tolerance. Lions regularly cooperate and their egalitarian social structure predicts high social tolerance. I used a food-sharing task and cooperative problem-solving task to investigate tolerance and cooperation in lions. The majority of pairs (N = 5/7 dyads) solved the cooperative task, repeated success in consecutive trials, and demonstrated cooperative complexity at the levels of similarity and synchrony. Surprisingly, lions showed no evidence of coordination. If coordination occurred, then after gaining experience and when no longer naïve to the need for a partner, lions should increase the proportion of time spent together and preferentially attended to the task in the presence of a partner. However, naïve and experienced pairs did not differ (Wilcoxon matched-pair signed-rank test: both present at apparatus: S4 = - 4.5, N = 5, p = 0.50 |both touching the rope: S4 = - 3.5, N = 5, p = 0.43| simultaneous action: S4 = 2.5, N = 5, p = 0.63). As predicted, lions displayed high tolerance and cooperative success was positively correlated with tolerance (Spearman's correlation test: ρ = 0.83, N = 7, p = 0.02*). To date, this is the first experimental test of and support for cooperative problem solving in lions.
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Leones , Solución de Problemas , Conducta Social , Animales , FemeninoRESUMEN
Currently, it has been revealed that high levels of tolerance facilitate the occurrence of cooperative behavior in animals. This predicts that Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) would fail to solve cooperative food-retrieval tasks because of their low level of social tolerance. However, Japanese macaques exhibit regional differences in their levels of tolerance. In this study, we showed how inter-group difference in social tolerance could affect cooperation, by presenting a well-established cooperative rope-pulling task with two free-ranging groups of Japanese macaques that exhibit different levels of social tolerance. We used the task that required two macaques to pull both ends of a single rope simultaneously to obtain food rewards. We found that some macaques from the more tolerant group successfully solved the task, and one of them learned to wait for a partner when a partner was absent. In contrast, however, those of the less tolerant group almost never succeeded in the task. These results indicate that Japanese macaques possess the abilities to cooperate with conspecifics, but such abilities may be constrained in their typically despotic society.
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Macaca fuscata/psicología , Solución de Problemas , Conducta Social , Animales , Conducta Cooperativa , Femenino , Japón , MasculinoRESUMEN
In collaborative decision making, children must evaluate the evidence behind their respective claims and the rationality of their respective proposals with their partners. In the main study, 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads (Nâ¯=â¯196) were presented with a novel animal. In the key condition, children in a dyad individually received conflicting information about what the animal needs (e.g., rocks vs. sand for food) from sources that differ in reliability (with first-hand vs. indirect evidence). Dyads in both age groups were able to reliably settle on the option with the best supporting evidence. Moreover, in making their decision, children, especially 7-year-olds, engaged in various kinds of meta-talk about the evidence and its validity. In a modified version of the key condition in Study 2, 3- and 5-year-olds (Nâ¯=â¯120) interacted with a puppet who tried to convince children to change their minds by producing meta-talk. When the puppet insisted and produced meta-talk, 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, were more likely to change their minds if their information was unreliable. These results suggest that even preschoolers can engage in collaborative reasoning successfully, but the ability to reflect on the process by stepping back to jointly examine the evidence emerges only during the early school years.