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Social learning and teaching in chimpanzees

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Abstract

There is increasing evidence that some behavioural differences between groups of chimpanzees can be attributed neither to genetic nor to ecological variation. Such differences are likely to be maintained by social learning. While humans teach their offspring, and acquire cultural traits through imitative learning, there is little evidence of such behaviours in chimpanzees. However, by appealing only to incremental changes in motivation, attention and attention-soliciting behaviour, and without expensive changes in cognition, we can hypothesise the possible emergence of imitation and pedagogy in evolutionary history.

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Notes

  1. Some have argued that social learning is insufficient for the presence of culture, because culture also involves issues like group identity, conformity, and normativity (e.g., Perry 2009). These claims fall outside the scope of this review, and won’t be discussed here. It might also be objected that insisting on a boundary between culture and ecology neglects that many intuitive cases of human cultural difference are grounded in ecological factors. For example, different types of human dwelling place—from igloos to mud huts—often reflect differences in climate. This shows that the term ‘culture’ is used in a more restricted sense in comparative psychology than in common parlance.

  2. For reasons of space alone, I restrict discussion here to chimpanzees. See Laland and Galef (eds) (2009) for an overview of debates about culture in other species of animal.

  3. Although nut-cracking has yet to be observed in eastern chimpanzees, it has been observed in Pan troglodytes vellerosus, in the Ebo forest in Cameroon (Morgan and Abwe 2006; Wrangham 2006).

  4. De Waal calls this ‘bonding-and-identification-based observational learning’ (‘BIOL’). His hypothesis includes further aspects that are not directly supported by the evidence described here—namely, that chimpanzees imitate older individuals, and that they do so in order to be like them. Issues of chimpanzee imitation will be discussed in later sections. For discussion of affiliative conformity see van Schaik (2012), Over and Carpenter (2013) and van Leeuwen and Haun (2013).

  5. A similar example has recently emerged at Chimfunshi, where others have followed one high-ranking female by inserting long strands of grass into their ear (Edwin van Leeuwen, in conversation).

  6. In fact, similar behaviour has already been identified in free-ranging macaques (Macaca fascicularis), who floss their teeth more often and more slowly when observed by infants (Masataka et al. 2009).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Matthias Allritz, Cathy Crockford, Gergely Csibra, Edwin van Leeuwen, Lydia Luncz, Claudio Tennie, Roman Wittig, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on and discussions relating to drafts of this material; and to Edwin van Leeuwen, Mark Bodamer, and the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust for photographs of the grooming handclasp in Fig. 1.

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  1. Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Richard Moore

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Moore, R. Social learning and teaching in chimpanzees. Biol Philos 28, 879–901 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-013-9394-y

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