Rats prefer mutual rewards in a prosocial choice task

Area of Science:

• Comparative psychology
• Animal behavior
• Evolutionary biology

Background:

• Pro-sociality, the tendency to benefit others, is a key human trait.
• Cross-species studies are crucial for understanding the evolution of social behavior.
• Existing tasks often confound social motives with self-interest or strategic elements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a rodent model of the Pro-social Choice Task.
• To investigate the influence of social context on reward allocation decisions in rats.
• To disentangle other-regarding motives from self-maximizing tendencies.

Main Methods:

• Pairs of rats (actor and partner) were trained in a double T-maze.
• Actors chose between 'own reward' (actor only) and 'both reward' (actor and partner).
• The 'both reward' option was tested against a partner rat or an inanimate toy.

Main Results:

• Actors consistently chose the 'both reward' option above chance levels.
• This pro-social choice was significantly more frequent when the recipient was a partner rat compared to a toy.
• Behavior demonstrated adaptability to social context and temporal stability.

Conclusions:

• Rats display genuine pro-sociality, favoring outcomes benefiting conspecifics.
• The decision-making process is sensitive to the social nature of the recipient.
• This rodent model offers a valuable tool for studying the evolution and mechanisms of pro-sociality.