Like humans, baboons are strategic cooperators

Guinea baboons (Papio papio) at the Rousset-sur-Arc Primate Centre. Nicolas Claidière A team led by CNRS scientists 1  has discovered that, just like humans, Guinea baboons develop complex strategies to select partners for cooperation, basing their decisions on past interactions. Humans naturally engage in strategic cooperation in many contexts. For example, when children help schoolmates by lending them their class notes, they may expect the same in return the next time: this is known as reciprocity. But if the favour is not returned, they are likely to seek others with whom to cooperate. The team's findings are the fruit of observations at the CNRS Rousset-sur-Arc Primate Centre. The 18 baboons in their study were free to engage or not in the experimental task, which involved an 'actor'-i.e., decision-making-baboon and a 'receiver' baboon.