Summary: A recent research reveals that both young children and chimpanzees are drawn to social interactions, maybe even at a cost. Both species constantly chose the societal scenes when given the option to watch videos of social behavior or to watch music videos of individuals.
Some participants also gave up rewards only to satisfy their curiosity, including younger children and male chimpanzees. These findings provide the idea that cultural attention is a trait that has deep biological roots and is not just a trait in humans.
Important Information:
- Shared Curiosity: Both kids and puppies preferred to watch social interactions as opposed to single conduct.
- Willing to Pay: Some participants made food ( chimpanzees ) or toys (kids ) available to watch social media.
- First Evolutionary Trait: Social curiosity starts early in life and spreads to other great apes, suggesting ancient roots.
University of Portsmouth
Always find yourself watching people in a cafe or watching reality TV to see who is arguing with whom? You’re not only; it turns out that you may have more in common with primates than you think.
A group of international researchers found that both are greatly interested in the relations of others, even when it comes at a price in a new study  , comparing interpersonal curiosity in primates and kids.  ,
Being inquisitive about social behavior isn’t only a human trait, according to the study, which was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
Dr. Laura Simone Lewis, the lead author at the University of California in Santa Barbara, stated:” The analysis team was inspired to pursue a fresh social lane in the emerging field of curiosity research. We have seen both children and chimpanzees occasionally jumping up in the middle of research games to see their peers.”
Prior to now, little was known about the evolutionary and biological roots of sociable curiosity, which is a desire to learn about other people’s behaviors, relationships, and psychological processes.  ,
The research group has discovered that young kids and adult chimpanzees also pay a fabric price to access social knowledge while chimpanzees and younger children prefer to watch videos of social interactions as opposed to videos of a single person.
This implies that social curiosity is present in early human development and is shared with the chimpanzees, one of our closest living relatives, Dr. Lewis said.
Our deep evolutionary roots may be in our great ape lineage, which includes gossip magazines and celebrity shows.
The Oakland Zoo and Lawrence Hall of Science, as well as the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda and other locations in California, were the subjects of the three experiments.  ,
The study was co-authored by Dr. Esther Herrmann from the University of Portsmouth’s Center for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology. She stated,” This study teaches us that curiosity about what other people are doing – or what you might call being a little nosey – starts young and develops. It’s probably something that helps our closest living relatives as well as us survive and prosper in complex social groups.
What they did
Researchers created two unique” curious boxes” of wood that held tablets playing various videos in order to gauge social curiosity. Chimpanzees and 4- to 6-year-old children could choose to watch a video of just one individual acting alone in one box while watching another one ( such as grooming, playing, or arguing ) in each experiment.
Both species consistently spent more time watching social events during the first experiment. Participants had to choose between a reward ( jackfruit seeds for chimpanzees and marbles for kids ) and the chance to watch a social video in the second round. Some people chose the video over the treat, especially young children and male chimpanzees.
In the end, the study was able to determine whether participants preferred to watch positive or negative interactions, such as conflicts or grooming. Chimpanzees didn’t seem to have a strong preference for either behavior, but human children did: as they grew older, boys became more interested in the negative interactions while girls gravitated toward the positive ones.
One of the first studies to use the same setup to test social curiosity in both chimpanzees and humans. It suggests that our concern for what other people are doing, such as cooperating, falling out, and keeping an eye on, may be something we inherited from a common ancestor millions of years ago.
And that curiosity might be more than just entertainment. Watching how others interact makes it easier to understand relationships, stay out of trouble, and establish who we can rely on.
Dr. Herrmann continued,” This kind of social curiosity is actually really important for learning about our environment, making decisions, and building relationships.”
The researchers recommend that future studies look at how social curiosity develops in younger chimpanzees and among different human cultures, as well as how adults from both species can be compared.
They also advise conducting research on other outstanding apes like bonobos and orangutans, as well as how social norms like friendliness and relationship type ( friends versus. strangers ) affect curiosity. These findings could help us understand how social curiosity evolved and why it varies depending on age, gender, and species.
About this latest research on social development
Author: Robyn Montague
Source: University of Portsmouth
Contact: Robyn Montague – University of Portsmouth
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Open access to original research
By Laura Simone Lewis and others,” Chimpanzees and young people are curious about social interactions..” Royal Society B Biological Sciences Annual Meetings
Abstract
Chimpanzees and young people are curious about social interactions.
Curiosity improves learning, increases learning, and lessens uncertainty. The goal of social curiosity is to learn about other people’s behaviors, relationships, and psychology.
Little is known about the social curiosity’s developmental and evolutionary roots.
We examine whether chimpanzees ( n , = 27 ) and young children ( 4 to 6 years old,  , n , = 94) exhibit a particular interest in social interactions between third parties in three comparative studies.
In contrast to videos of a single conspecific, chimpanzees and children preferred to watch social interactions ( Experiment 1 ), and young children and male chimpanzees even paid a fee to access social information ( Experiment 2 ) ( Experiment 2 ).
Finally, according to our findings, boys develop a greater interest in positive social interactions while girls develop a different interest in positive social interactions ( Experiment 3 ). Chimpanzees also showed no preference for negative or positive social interactions.
Together, these findings suggest that social curiosity first develops in early human ontogeny and is shared with one of our two most amiable relatives, the chimpanzees.
