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Related Concept Videos

Altruism01:03

Altruism

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Altruistic behaviors are “unselfish” behaviors—those that help another individual at the expense of the individual carrying out the behavior. Despite the negative consequences for the altruistic animal, these behaviors are thought to have evolved for several reasons.
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Instinctive Drift01:05

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Instinctive drift refers to the tendency of animals to revert to their innate behaviors despite repeated reinforcement. Breland and Breland demonstrated this concept in an experiment with a raccoon. The raccoon was trained to pick up two coins and place them in a container in exchange for food. Initially, the raccoon learned to associate the coins with food, making them a conditioned stimulus or a substitute for food. However, over time, the raccoon became less willing to put the coins into the...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 29, 2025

A Complex Diving-For-Food Task to Investigate Social Organization and Interactions in Rats
10:29

A Complex Diving-For-Food Task to Investigate Social Organization and Interactions in Rats

Published on: May 8, 2021

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Failure to Find Altruistic Food Sharing in Rats.

Haoran Wan1, Cyrus Kirkman1, Greg Jensen2,3

  • 1Department of Psychology, Reed College, Portland, OR, United States.

Frontiers in Psychology
|July 9, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Rats did not altruistically share food with cagemates, even when food was abundant. Sharing behavior was minimal across all tested conditions, challenging previous interpretations of rat altruism.

Keywords:
altruism and prosocial behaviorfood rewardlever presspreferenceratsocial releasesocial reward

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Area of Science:

  • Animal behavior
  • Behavioral neuroscience
  • Rodent social dynamics

Background:

  • Previous studies suggested rats exhibit altruism by sharing food with cagemates.
  • Altruistic behavior in rats, defined as costly aid to others, requires careful examination due to its rarity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To systematically investigate the conditions under which rats share food with familiar cagemates.
  • To test the hypothesis that rats exhibit altruistic food sharing, particularly when food is abundant.

Main Methods:

  • Rats made repeated choices between obtaining food (sucrose pellets) and social access to a familiar cagemate.
  • Food availability (pellet quantity) and motivation (food restriction level) were manipulated across experimental conditions.

Main Results:

  • Rats consistently chose both food and social interaction, but with differing response levels.
  • Food consumption varied with motivation: high under food restriction, low with unlimited access.
  • Social release occurred at moderate levels, independent of food-related manipulations.

Conclusions:

  • The study's findings do not support claims of altruistic food sharing in rats.
  • Observed sharing was minimal (1% of opportunities) even when food was abundant and motivation low.
  • Results suggest that rat food-sharing behavior is not primarily driven by altruistic motivation.