Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees Export

@article{citeulike:528258, abstract = {Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees.}, author = {Warneken, Felix and Tomasello, Michael}, citeulike-article-id = {528258}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1121448}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5765/1301}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16513986}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=16513986}, day = {3}, doi = {10.1126/science.1121448}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {altruism, animals, chimpanzee, helping}, month = {March}, number = {5765}, pages = {1301--1303}, posted-at = {2006-03-03 15:58:02}, priority = {2}, title = {Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1121448}, volume = {311}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:528258 L3 - citeulike-article-id:528258 N2 - Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees. IS - 5765 JF - Science EP - 1303 TI - Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees VL - 311 SP - 1301 KW - altruism KW - animals KW - chimpanzee KW - helping AU - Warneken, Felix AU - Tomasello, Michael PY - 2006/03/03/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1121448 ER -