Cooperation and partner choice among Agta hunter-gatherer children: An evolutionary developmental perspective.

ABSTRACT: Examining development is essential for a full understanding of behaviour, including how individuals acquire traits and how adaptive evolutionary forces shape these processes. The present study explores the development of cooperative behaviour among the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population. A simple resource allocation game assessing both levels of cooperation (how much children shared) and patterns of partner choice (who they shared with) was played with 179 children between the ages of 3 and 18. Children were given five resources (candies) and for each was asked whether to keep it for themselves or share with someone else, and if so, who this was. Between-camp variation in children's cooperative behaviour was substantial, and the only strong predictor of children's cooperation was

SUBMITTER: Major-Smith D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10132543 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature