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Despotism promotes dyadic cooperation through enhanced interdependencies in non-human primate societies
Debottam Bhattacharjee1,2,3, Tonko W Zijlstra4, Tom S Roth5
1Animal Behaviour & Cognition, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. bhattacharjee.debottam@gmail.com.
Nature Communications
|April 30, 2026
Summary
Interdependencies, not just tolerance, drive cooperation. Even despotic societies exhibit cooperation, but it is selective, favoring stable, dyadic bonds over broad group engagement.
Area of Science:
- Primate social behavior
- Evolutionary biology
- Behavioral ecology
Background:
- Cooperation is vital for societies, often linked to tolerance and egalitarianism.
- However, cooperation exists in less tolerant, despotic societies, challenging existing theories.
- The interdependency hypothesis suggests group or dyadic interdependencies promote cooperation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the interdependency hypothesis in macaque species with varying social structures.
- To investigate the relationship between interdependencies, tolerance, and cooperation.
- To understand the drivers of cooperation in both egalitarian and despotic societies.
Main Methods:
- Experimental study of cooperation, prosociality, and tolerance in six macaque species.
- Analysis of dyadic interdependence, kinship, and tolerance.
- Agent-based modeling to simulate social bonds and interdependencies.
Main Results:
- Despotic macaque societies show high dyadic cooperation, but it is restricted to specific partners.
- Cooperation is positively predicted by dyadic prosociality, kinship, and tolerance.
- Agent-based models indicate despotic societies have fewer, more stable bonds and higher dyadic interdependencies.
Conclusions:
- Interdependencies, particularly dyadic ones, facilitate the emergence and maintenance of cooperation.
- Selective cooperation in despotic societies is driven by stable, interdependent relationships.
- Findings challenge the view that tolerance is the sole prerequisite for cooperation.
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