Prosocial behaviour benefits another individual and occurs voluntarily. It may have a cognitive and a motivational component. The actor who benefits a recipient – for example by solving her/his problem (1) must recognize the recipient’s goal and understand how to fulfil it and (2) has to be motivated to support the recipient.
In the current paper I will review recent studies on prosocial behavior in dogs and I will compare them to studies with primates. I will address the cognitive and motivational skills required for the actor in order to support the recipient.
I conclude that dogs and also chimpanzees display a number of prosocial behaviours, but there are remarkable differences. In contrast to humans, which have an outstanding biological predisposition to benefit others, dogs and chimpanzees only do so under certain conditions.
(1987) The biology of moral systems. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Barcaly, P
(2011) The evolution of charitable behaviour and the power of reputation. In S.C. Roberts (Ed.), Applied evolutionary psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Amici, F., Aureli, F., Visalberghi, E., & Call, J
(2009) Spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) follow gaze around barriers: Evidence for perspective taking?Journal of Comparative Psychology, 123(4), 368–374.
Amici, F., Visalberghi, E., & Call, J
(2014) Lack of prosociality in great apes, capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys: Convergent evidence from two different food distribution tasks.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
, 281(1699).
Boesch, C
(1994) Cooperative hunting in wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 48(3), 653–667.
Bonanni, R., & Cafazzo, S
(2014) The social organization of a population of free-ranging dogs in a suburban area of Rome: A reassessment of the effects of domestication on dog behaviour. In J. Kaminski & S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.), The social dog: Behaviour and cognition (pp. 65–104). San Diego, London, Waltham: Elsevier publishers.
Bräuer, J
(2014) What dogs understand about humans. In J. Kaminski & S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.), The social dog: Behaviour and cognition (pp. 295–317). San Diego, London, Waltham: Elsevier publishers.
Bräuer, J., Bös, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2013) Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) coordinate their actions in a problem-solving task. Animal Cognition, 16(2), 273–285.
Bräuer, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2005) All great ape species follow gaze to distant locations and around barriers. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 119(2), 145–154.
Bräuer, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2006) Are apes really inequity averse?Proceedings of Royal Society London, 2731, 3123–3128.
Bräuer, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2007) Chimpanzees really know what others can see in a competitive situation. Animal Cognition, 10(4), 439–448.
Bräuer, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M (2009) Are apes inequity averse? New data on the token-exchange paradigm. American Journal of Primatology, 71(2), 175–181.
Bräuer, J., & Hanus, D
(2012) Fairness in non-human primates?Social Justice Research, 25(3), 256–276.
Bräuer, J., Schönefeld, K., & Call, J
(2013) When do dogs help humans?Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 148(1-2), 138–149.
Brosnan, S.F., & de Waal, F
(2014) Evolution of responses to (un)fairness. Science, 346(6207).
(2015) Personality influences responses to inequity and contrast in chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 1011, 75–87.
Brosnan, S.F., Schiff, H.C., & Waal, F.B.M. d
(2005) Tolerance for inequity may increase with social closeness in chimpanzees. Proceedings B, 2721, 253–258.
Bshary, R., & Bergmüller, R
(2008) Distinguishing four fundamental approaches to the evolution of helping. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 211, 405–420.
Bullinger, A., Zimmerman, F., Kaminski, J., & Tomasello, M
(2011) Different social motives in the gestural communication of chimpanzees and human children. Developmental Science, 14(1), 58–68.
Burkart, J.M., Fehr, E., Efferson, C., & van Schaik, C.P
(2007) Other-regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets provision food altruistically.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
, 104(50), 19762–19766.
Burkart, J.M., Hrdy, S.B., & Van Schaik, C.P
(2009) Cooperative breeding and human cognitive evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 18(5), 175–186.
Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2004) 'unwilling’ versus 'unable’: Chimpanzees' understanding of human intentional action. Developmental Science, 7(4), 488–498.
Call, J., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M
(2001) Gaze following in five non-human primate Species. Folia Primatologica, 72(6), 347–348.
Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2008) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(5), 187–192.
Chaumette, M., Dale, R., Dania, R., Marshall-Pescini, S., & Range, F
(2014) Pro-social behavior in pet dogs. Paper presented at the 4th Canine Science Forum, Lincoln.
Clavien, C
(2012) Altruistic emotional motivation: An argument in favour of psychological altruism. In K. Plaisance & T. Reydon (Eds.), Philosophy of behavioural biology Vol. 2821, (pp. 275–296). London, UK: Springer.
Connor, R.C
(1996) Partner preferences in by-product mutualisms and the case of predator inspection in fish. Animal Behaviour, 511, 451–454.
Coppinger, R., & Coppinger, L
(2001) Dogs: A startling new understanding of canine origin, behaviour, and evolution. New York, NY, US: Scribner.
Dale, R., Chaumette, M., Dania, R., Marshall-Pescini, S., & Range, F
(2014) Investigating prosocial tendencies in pet dogs. Paper presented at the 4th Canine Science Forum, Lincoln.
Dalziel, D.J., Uthman, B.M., McGorray, S.P., & Reep, R.L (2003) Seizure-alert dogs: A review and preliminary study. Seizure-European Journal of Epilepsy, 12(2), 115–120.
Emlen, S.T., & Wrege, P.H
(1988) The role of kinship in helping decisions among whitefronted bee-eaters. Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiolgy, 23(5), 305–315.
Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U
(2003) The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425(6960), 785–791.
Hadjichrysanthou, C., & Broom, M
(2012) When should animals share food? Game theory applied to kleptoparasitic populations with food sharing. Behavioral Ecology, 23(5), 977–991.
Hamann, K., Warneken, F., Greenberg, J., & Tomasello, M
(2011) Collaboration encourages equal sharing in children but not chimpanzees. Nature, 4761, 328–331.
Hamilton, W.D
(1964) The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I & II. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7(1), 1–52.
Hare, B., Call, J., Agnetta, B., & Tomasello, M
(2000) Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see. Animal Behaviour, 59(4), 771–785.
Hare, B., & Tomasello, M
(1999) Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use human and conspecific social cues to locate hidden food. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 113(2), 173–177.
Hare, B., & Tomasello, M
(2004) Chimpanzees are more skilful in competitive than in cooperative cognitive tasks. Animal Behaviour, 68(3), 571–581.
Hare, B., & Tomasello, M
(2005) Human-like social skills in dogs?Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(9), 439–444.
Hay, D.F., Caplan, M., Castle, J., & Stimson, C.A
(1991) Does sharing become increasingly "rational" in the second year of life?Developmental Psychology, 27(6), 987–993.
Horner, V., Carter, J.D., Suchak, M., & de Waal, F.B.M
(2011) Spontaneous prosocial choice by chimpanzees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(33), 13847–13851.
Jensen, K
(2012a) Social regard: Evolving a psychology of cooperation. In J. Mitani, J. Call, P. Kappeler, R. Palombit & J. Silk (Eds.), The evolution of primate societies (pp. 565–584). Chicago, USA: Chicago University Press.
Jensen, K
(2012b) Other-regarding sentiments - decisions with feeling. In P. Hammerstein & J. Stevens (Eds.), Evolving the mechanisms of decision making: Toward a darwinian decision theory (pp. 299–318). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Jensen, K., Hare, B., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2006) What´s in it for me? Self-regard precludes altruism and spite in chimpanzees. Proceedings of Royal Society London, Series B Biological Sciences, 273(1589), 1013–1021.
Jensen, K., Vaish, A., & Schmidt, M
(2014) The emergence of human prosociality: Aligning with others through feelings, concerns, and norms. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(822).
Kaminski, J., Riedel, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2005) Domestic goats, capra hircus, follow gaze direction and use social cues in an object choice task. Animal Behaviour, 69(1), 11–18.
Kaminski, J., & Marshall-Pescini, S
(2014) The social dog: Behaviour and cognition. Elsevier publishers.
Kaminski, J., Neumann, M., Bräuer, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M (2011) Domestic dogs communicate to request and not to inform. Animal Behaviour, 82(4), 651–658.
Kaminski, J., Nitzschner, M., Wobber, V., Tennie, C., Bräuer, J., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2011) Do dogs distinguish rational from irrational acts?Animal Behaviour, 81(1), 195–203.
Kaminski, J., & Nitzschner, M
(2013) Do dogs get the point?: A review of dog–human communication ability. Learning and Motivation, 44(4), 294–302.
Kobayashi, H., & Kohshima, S
(2001) Evolution of the human eye as a device for communication In Matsuzawa, Tetsuro (Ed). Primate research institute; Kyoto university. (2001). Primate origins of human cognition and behaviour. (pp. 383–401). New York, NY, US: Springer-Verlag Publishing.
Lehmann, L., & Keller, L
(2006) The evolution of cooperation and altruism – a general framework and a classification of models. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 191, 1365–1376.
Lim, K., Fisher, M., & Burns-Cox, C.J
(1992) Type 1 Diabetics and their Pets. Diabetic Medicine, 91, S3–S4.
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Striano, T., & Tomasello, M
(2006) 12- and 18-month-olds point to provide information for others. [Original]. Journal of Cognition and Development, 7(2), 173–187.
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M
(2008) Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition, 108(3), 732–739.
Macpherson, K., & Roberts, W.A
(2006) Do dogs (canis familiaris) seek help in an emergency?Journal of Comparative Psychology, 120(2), 113–119.
Marshall-Pescini, S., Ceretta, M., & Prato-Previde, E
(2014) Do domestic dogs understand human actions as goal-directed?PLOS ONE, 9(9), e106530.
Mcgowan, A., Hatchwell, B.J., & Woodburn, R.J.W
(2003) The effect of helping behaviour on the survival of juvenile and adult long-tailed tits aegithalos caudatus. Journal of Animal Ecology, 72(3), 41–99.
Melis, A.P., Hare, B., & Tomasello, M
(2008) Do chimpanzees reciprocate received favours?Animal Behaviour, 76(3), 951–962.
Melis, A.P., Schneider, A., & Tomasello, M
(2011) Chimpanzees share food in the same way after collaborative and individual food acquisition. Animal Behaviour, 82(3), 485–493.
Melis, A.P., & Semmann, D
(2010) How is human cooperation different?Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B Biological Sciences, 365(1553), 2663–2674.
Melis, A.P., & Tomasello, M
(2013) Chimpanzees’ (Pan troglodytes) strategic helping in a collaborative task. Biology Letters, 9(2), 20130009.
Melis, A.P., Warneken, F., Jensen, K., Schneider, A.-C., Call, J., & Tomasello, M
(2011) Chimpanzees help conspecifics obtain food and non-food items. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B Biological Sciences, 278(1710), 1405–1413.
Miklósi, A
(2007) Dog behaviour, evolution, and cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miklósi, A., Polgárdi, R., Topál, J., & Csányi, V
(2000) Intentional behaviour in dog-human communication: An experimental analysis of "showing' behaviour in the dog. Animal Cognition, 3(3), 159–166.
Naderi, S., Miklósi, Á., Doka, A., & Csányi, V (2001) Cooperative interactions between blind persons and their dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 74(1), 59–80.
Petter, M., Musolino, E., Roberts, W.A., & Cole, M
(2009) Can dogs (canis familiaris) detect human deception?Behavioural Processes, 82(2), 109–118.
Phillips, W., Barnes, J., Mahajan, N., Yamaguchi, M., & Santos, L
(2009) 'Unwilling' versus 'unable': Capuchin monkeys' (Cebus apella) understanding of human intentional action. Developmental Science, 12(6), 938–945.
Price, E.O
(1984) Behavioral aspects of animal domestication. Quarterly Review of Biology, 59(1), 1–32.
Prinz, J
(2007) The emotional construction of morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Range, F., Virányi, Z., & Huber, L
(2007) Selective imitation in domestic dogs. Current Biology, 17(10), 868–872.
Range, F., Horn, L., Virányi, Z., & Huber, L
(2009) The absence of reward induces inequity aversion in dogs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(1), 340–345.
Ruusila, V., & Pesonen, M
(2004) Interspecific cooperation in human (Homo sapiens) hunting: The benefits of a barking dog (Canis familiaris). Annual Zoological Fennici, 411, 545–549.
Savalli, C., Ades, C., & Gaunet, F
(2014) Are dogs able to communicate with their owners about a desirable food in a referential and intentional way?PLOS ONE, 9(9), e108003.
Schloegl, C., Kotrschal, K., & Bugnyar, T
(2008) Do common ravens (corvus corax) rely on human or conspecific gaze cues to detect hidden food?Animal Cognition, 11(2), 231–241.
Serpell, J.E
(1995) The domestic dog: Its evolution, behaviour and interactions with people. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2013) Chimpanzees share food for many reasons: The role of kinship, reciprocity, social bonds and harassment on food transfers. Animal Behaviour, 85(5), 941–947.
(2005) Chimpanzees are indifferent t the welfare of unrelated group members. Nature, 4371, 1357–1359.
Stevens, J.R
(2004) The selfish nature of generosity: Harassment and food sharing in primates. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B Biological Sciences, 271(1538), 451–456.
Stevens, J.R., & Gilby, I.C
(2004) A conceptual framework for nonkin food sharing: Timing and currency of benefits. Animal Behaviour, 67(4), 603–614.
Stevens, J.R., & Hauser, M.D
(2004) Why be nice? psychological constraints on the evolution of cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(2), 60–65.
Svartberg, K., & Forkman, B
(2002) Personality traits in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 79(2), 133–156.
Thornton, A., & McAuliffe, K
(2006) Teaching in wild meerkats. Science, 313(5784), 227–229.
Tomasello, M., Hare, B., Lehmann, H., & Call, J (2007) Reliance on head versus eyes in the gaze following of great apes and human infants: The cooperative eye hypothesis. Journal of Human Evolution, 52(3), 314–320.
Tomasello, M., Melis, A.P., Tennie, C., Wyman, E., & Herrmann, E
(2012) Two key steps in the evolution of cooperation: The interdependence hypothesis. Current Anthropology, 53(6), 673–692.
Topál, J
(2014) Dogs` sensitivity to human ostensive cues - a unique adaptation? In J. Kaminski & S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.), The social dog: Behaviour and cognition (pp. 319–346). San Diego, London, Waltham: Elsevier publishers.
Trivers, R.L
(1971) The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46(1), 35–57.
Ueno, A., & Matsuzawa, T
(2004) Food transfer between chimpanzee mothers and their infants. Primates, 451, 231–239.
Virányi, Z., Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., & Csányi, V
(2006) A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children. Animal Cognition, 9(1), 13–26.
von Frisch, K
(1971) Bees: Their vision, chemical senses, and language. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Warneken, F., Chen, F., & Tomasello, M
(2006) Cooperative activities in young children and chimpanzees. Child Development, 77(3), 640–663.
Warneken, F., Hare, B., Melis, A.P., Hanus, D., & Tomasello, M
(2007) Spontaneous altruism by chimpanzees and young children. PLoS Biology, 5(7), e184.
Warneken, F., Lohse, K., Melis, A.P., & Tomasello, M
(2011) Young children share the spoils after collaboration. Psychological Science, 22(2), 267–273.
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M
(2006) Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 311(5765), 1301–1303.
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M
(2007) Helping and cooperation at 14 months of age. Infancy, 11(3), 271–294.
(2009a) The roots of human altruism. British Journal of Psychology, 100(3), 455–471.
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M
(2009b) Varieties of altruism in children and chimpanzees. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(9), 397–402.
Wilkinson, A., Mandl, I., Bugnyar, T., & Huber, L
(2010) Gaze following in the red-footed tortoise (Geochelone carbonaria). Animal Cognition, 13(5), 765–769.
Wispé, L.G
(1972) Positive forms of social behavior: An overview. Journal of Social Issues, 28(3), 1–19.
Yamamoto, S., Humle, T., & Tanaka, M (2012) Chimpanzees’ flexible targeted helping based on an understanding of conspecifics’ goals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(9), 3588–3592.
(2009b) Selfish strategies develop in social problem situations in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mother–infant pairs. Animal Cognition, 121, 27–36.
Zimmermann, F., Zemke, F., Call, J., & Gómez, J.C
(2009) Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) point to inform a human about the location of a tool. Animal Cognition, 12(2), 347–358.
Cited by
Cited by 12 other publications
Bender, Yana, Juliane Bräuer & Stefan R. Schweinberger
2023. What makes a good dog-owner team? – A systematic review about compatibility in personality and attachment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 260 ► pp. 105857 ff.
Bender, Yana, Tim Matschkowski, Stefan R. Schweinberger & Juliane Bräuer
2023. “An Aid with Soul”—Understanding the Determinants of Guide Dog-Owner Compatibility from Qualitative Interviews. Animals 13:17 ► pp. 2751 ff.
Bhattacharjee, Debottam & Anindita Bhadra
2020. Humans Dominate the Social Interaction Networks of Urban Free-Ranging Dogs in India. Frontiers in Psychology 11
Bräuer, Juliane & Yana Bender
2023. Warum die Vergleichende Psychologie auf den Hund gekommen ist. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie 55:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Bräuer, Juliane, Daniel Hanus, Simone Pika, Russell Gray & Natalie Uomini
2020. Old and New Approaches to Animal Cognition: There Is Not “One Cognition”. Journal of Intelligence 8:3 ► pp. 28 ff.
Chira, Angela M., Kathryn Kirby, Theresa Epperlein & Juliane Bräuer
2023. Function predicts how people treat their dogs in a global sample. Scientific Reports 13:1
Dale, Rachel, Sylvain Palma-Jacinto, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, Friederike Range & Elsa Addessi
2019. Wolves, but not dogs, are prosocial in a touch screen task. PLOS ONE 14:5 ► pp. e0215444 ff.
Donnier, Sasha, Gyula Kovács, Linda S. Oña, Juliane Bräuer & Federica Amici
2020. Experience has a limited effect on humans’ ability to predict the outcome of social interactions in children, dogs and macaques. Scientific Reports 10:1
Leete, Jessica Ann & Jennifer Vonk
2022. In mixed company: two macaws are self-regarding in a symbolic prosocial choice task. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 76:1
Samet, Lauren E., Helen Vaterlaws-Whiteside, Naomi D. Harvey, Melissa M. Upjohn & Rachel A. Casey
2022. Exploring and Developing the Questions Used to Measure the Human–Dog Bond: New and Existing Themes. Animals 12:7 ► pp. 805 ff.
2021. Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action. Scientific Reports 11:1
Van Bourg, Joshua, Jordan Elizabeth Patterson, Clive D. L. Wynne & Valerio Capraro
2020. Pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) release their trapped and distressed owners: Individual variation and evidence of emotional contagion. PLOS ONE 15:4 ► pp. e0231742 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.