This has been found both in Western and small-scale societies, although for an exception see. Īlthough spontaneous helping occurs in children by the age of 12 months (reviewed in ), previous research on the development of cooperative behaviour has found that levels of cooperation tend to increase throughout childhood. This ontogenetic perspective may be especially valuable for understanding human cooperation, as even though children are somewhat dependent on provisioning until adulthood, they are not merely burdens to adults as they engage in useful cooperative activities such as caring for other children, performing domestic tasks and foraging. Developmental research is necessary for a complete understanding of behaviour, while cross-cultural research, especially in small-scale societies, is required to assess how behaviour develops outside of Western societies, where behaviour may not be representative of current human diversity or our deeper evolutionary history. Despite much research investigating how cooperative behaviour develops over childhood in Western societies, relatively little developmental work has occurred in the context of cooperation in small-scale societies, and hunter-gatherers in particular.

Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding cross-cultural patterns of children’s cooperation, and broader links with human cooperative childcare and life history evolution.Ĭooperation is a key human adaptation. Children preferentially shared with close kin (especially siblings), although older children increasingly shared with less-related individuals. Neither age, sex, relatedness or parental levels of cooperation were strongly associated with the amount children shared.

Between-camp variation in children’s cooperative behaviour was substantial, and the only strong predictor of children’s cooperation was the average level of cooperation among adults in camp that is, children were more cooperative in camps where adults were more cooperative. 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. 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. The present study explores the development of cooperative behaviour among the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population. Examining development is essential for a full understanding of behaviour, including how individuals acquire traits and how adaptive evolutionary forces shape these processes.

The Wonder-Gatherer by Anonymous