ETHICS + POLICY by ELIZABETH BURSTEIN
Credit: sxc.hu
Selfish Apes,
Altruistic
Humans
The origins of human cooperation
If someone asked you, “What
distinguishes humans from
their nearest primitive relatives-
-apes?” you might be drawn to one of
the following distinctions: in comparison
to humans, apes are quadrupedal, they are
hairier, and they have shorter legs. Aside
from these physical differences, recent
research has found key differences in the
basic behaviors of the two species.
Last October, Dr. Michael Tomasello,
developmental psychologist and Co-
Director of the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany, delivered a lecture entitled
“Phylogenetic Origins of Human
Collaboration” at Stanford as part of the
Tanner Lectures on Human Values, a multi-
university lecture series in the humanities.
Tomasello found that while humans are
altruistic and subscribe to institutionalized
norms that support cooperation, apes do
not. Although apes appear to work in groups
just as humans do, they are mutualistic
rather than altruistic—individual apes will
work with others to benefit themselves
individually rather than due to some
Credit: sxc.hu
inherent concern for the wellbeing of other
apes.
44 www.stanfordscientific.org
At the intersection of evolutionary
anthropology, psychology, and biology,
this groundbreaking research has large
implications concerning what it means to be
human.
It’s Mine, It’s Mine
Tomasello focused his research on three
sets of processes involved in collaboration:
coordination and communication, tolerance
and trust, and norms and institutions.
In humans he studied collaborative
activities in which there were joint goals,
mutual knowledge, and inter-dependent,
coordinated roles. He and his colleagues
also studied large amounts of video footage
comparing the behaviors of young children
and apes in potentially collaborative
activities in order to determine whether
apes cooperate in the same way as humans
do.
Tomasello presented a video from a study
by Warneken et al. in which a ping-pong
ball was thrown down a tube from an adult
to a young child. When the ping-pong ball
was dropped by the adult, the child went
out of the way to put the ball back in the
hand of the adult. The child also displayed
immediate role reversal, leaving his side of

“We believe that whereas apes understand
that what the other is doing as an individual
agent, they have neither the intentions nor
motivations to form with others joint goals” –
Michael Tomasello
the tube to become part of the process of
pushing the ball down the tube instead of
receiving it. The child took great joy in the
collaboration and recognized that there was
a joint goal in this activity: both the child
and the adult were trying to play the game.
When Warneken et al. conducted this same
experiment on a human-raised ape named
Annette, she would pick up the ball but
then would continue to play with it. She just
started rolling around without the ball and
did not collaborate. Tomasello reasons that it
was not because the activity was cognitively
difficult, but rather, because the chimp
simply regarded the activity as a game and
was not interested in the collaboration.
Another study involved two individuals
working together to retrieve food from
a chamber; to obtain the food, they had
to pull on two sticks supporting a bar
on which the food was placed inside the
chamber. Children would help each other
retrieve the food even if it was placed
closer to one child, while chimps would
not help each other or share unless the
food was placed directly between them.
Tomasello reasons that in order to explain
this difference evolutionarily, there had to
have been an initial divergence from this
pattern of low food sharing and no food
offering. These experiments suggest that
humans are tolerant of each other, consider
others trustworthy and engage in obligate
cooperation.
Other videos in the experiment focus
on studying early child development to
examine the social norms that impacted this
collaborative behavior.
Exploring Cultural
Intelligence
“We believe that whereas apes understand
that what the other is doing as an individual
agent, they have neither the intentions
ETHICS + POLICY
nor motivations to form with others
joint goals,” claims Tomasello. From his
research, Tomasello concludes that apes
do not possess “shared intentionality,”
the motivation to participate with others.
Part of this difference is explained by the
idea that humans do not live in a solely
physical world like apes, but rather, in an
institutionalized world. Tomasello found
that humans undergo distinct psychological
processes, which have enabled us to
build this institutionalized world, but he
also acknowledges that these underlying
psychological processes are “far from
understood.”
Tomasello explains the division of labor
with joint goals by reasoning that human
infants understand activities from a bird’s
eye view with the overarching goals in mind.
In contrast, apes do not understand role
reversal as they do not cognitively take into
account the entire system of tasks being
done. To explain this difference, one study
correlated the size of the sclera, the white
envelope of the eye, to the joint nature of
the activity. The human sclera is much larger
than that of apes. Whereas chimpanzees
follow each other’s head directions to the
determine the general directions in which
they are gazing, human infants rely more on
eye direction, suggesting that they may be
more specifically in tune with each other’s
joint goals and the division of labor.
In order to connect these suppositions on
collaboration with his generalized finding
that humans possess a special type of
“cultural intelligence,” Tomasello studied the
responses of the two species in different
interactive scenarios. By comparing the
proportion of correct responses versus
incorrect responses in each scenario, he
could determine those domains wherein
apes and humans share the greatest
Credit: sxc.hu
correlation. His findings show that
chimpanzees have fewer correct responses
volume VIII 45
 ETHICS + POLICY

While altruism is an important human

characteristic, it is not the main factor
determining how humans operate together.
in social and cultural scenarios, but that
the groups are roughly equal for physical
scenarios.
Distinguishing the
Tomasello says, “I believe that what
is happening is the following: the
chimpanzees are actually finding optimal
positions from which to hunt and the prey
ends up being surrounded.” He explains

Human Way of Life that they are engaged in a group activity

in “I” mode, not “we” mode as humans
While altruism is an important human
are. Because collaboration establishes
characteristic, Tomasello asserts that it
institutionalized norms in humans but does
is not the main factor determining how
not exist for chimps, it explains, in part,
humans operate together. Collaboration, on
why the human way of life is so much more
the other hand, has played a major role on
complex than that of chimps.
shaping many modern cultural institutions.
Overall, Tomasello reasons that collaborative
Consider people standing in line at a
activities that involve mutual knowledge,
store. Humans understand shopping and
conformism, and symbolism have helped
are aware of the rights and obligations
create our institutional culture. Thus, while
that exist within the store: objects are
apes and humans possess almost identical
private property, money is a trusted form
intelligences in regards to space, quantities,
of exchanged value, and standing in line
and causalities, chimpanzees show less
is the proper way to wait one’s turn. In
cultural and social intelligence, explaining
comparison, chimpanzees obtain their food
the differences in collaboration, role reversal,
through foraging, and they do not follow
and institutionalized norms.
these institutionalized procedures.

Tomasello cites a study on what is known

to be one of the most complex activities of Collaboration, on
chimpanzees—hunting in the Ivory Coast—
to contrast the potentially collaborative
the other hand, has
activities in which chimps do engage. In
this scenario, there is one
played a major role
driver chimpanzee on shaping many
that chases the prey in
a certain direction while others modern cultural
block the prey on the sides from changing
directions. Although this might seem to institutions.
indicate collaboration, Tomasello questions
whether this vocabulary is appropriate. Are
the chimps really collaborating, or is this To Learn More
simply an example of humans imposing the For a list of upcoming events in ethics and
norms with which we are familiar on our society visit http://ethicsinsociety.stanford.
edu/ethics-events/overview/
nearest phylogenetic relatives?
Credit: sxc.hu

46 www.stanfordscientific.org