Spontaneous prosocial choice by captive bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus

• Published in: Behavioural processes Vol. 135; pp. 8 - 11
• Main Authors: Nakahara, Fumio, Komaba, Masayuki, Sato, Ryoichi, Ikeda, Hisako, Komaba, Kumiko, Kawakubo, Akihiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-02-2017; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Animals; Behavior; Behavior, Animal - physiology; Bottle-Nosed Dolphin - physiology; Bottlenose dolphin; Cetacea; Choice Behavior - physiology; Cooperative Behavior; Dolphins & porpoises; Enrichment; Female; Other-regarding preferences; Partners; Proactive prosociality; Prosocial behavior; Reinforcement; Studies; Tursiops truncatus; Other-regarding preferences; Cooperative behavior; Bottlenose dolphin; Proactive prosociality; Prosocial behavior
• ISSN: 0376-6357; 1872-8308
• DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2016.11.009

•This study examined whether bottlenose dolphins showed spontaneous prosocial behavior.•Prosocial choices were spontaneously taken by dolphins without requests.•The dolphins showed preference for other-regarding behavior.
Dolphins exhibit prosocial behavior across several different contexts. However, only a few experimental studies have investigated the psychological mechanisms underlying this behavior. In this study, we investigated the mechanisms underlying prosociality in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). In the experiments, water shower devices, developed as environmental enrichment items, were used. Two paradigms were used to measure prosociality. The first was the prosocial choice task, involving the subject typically being offered one choice between two options. The first option provided a reward (take a shower) to both the subject and partner (prosocial choice). The second option provided a reward only to the subject (selfish choice). The second paradigm was the giving assistance task, involving the subject being provided a choice between providing instrumental help to the partner (prosocial choice) or doing nothing. It was observed that the subjects chose the prosocial choices in both paradigms. In these experiments, prosocial choices were spontaneously taken without requests from the partners. These results indicated that the dolphins show preference for other-regarding behavior.