H2020Индивидуална стипендия2020–2024

HelpSeeking · Ontogenetic and Phylogenetic Roots of Strategic Help-seeking

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2020-09-01 → 2024-04-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 246 669 €
Участници: 2
Схема: MSCA-IF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Стратегиите за търсене на помощ при деца и шимпанзета разглеждат как те избират кой може и иска да им помогне с действие или информация. Това помага да се разберат еволюционният произход и развитието на социалната интелигентност.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Ontogenetic and Phylogenetic Roots of Strategic Help-seeking

What drives our decisions when we seek help? How do we determine whom to turn to in times of need? The EU-funded HelpSeeking project delves into the development and evolution of human strategic help-seeking, comparing behaviors in human children from diverse cultures and our closest non-human relatives, chimpanzees. The main objective is to unravel the phylogenetic and ontogenetic roots of these behaviors, focusing on two types of help-seeking: instrumental (requesting action) and epistemic (seeking information). While previous research has predominantly focused on the helper—the individual providing assistance—this project shifts the spotlight to the helpee. The helpee is not a passive recipient but an active participant who can strategically increase the likelihood of receiving help. To successfully obtain help, one must address three key questions: Do I need help? Who is able to help? Who is willing to help? Recognizing the need for help requires self-awareness of one's abilities and environmental constraints. Identifying who can help necessitates an understanding of others' skills and limitations. Lastly, determining who is willing to help involves assessing the potential helper's motivation and the effort required. Despite the significant impact of strategic help-seeking on an individual's fitness, this project has pioneered in systematically studying the evolution and development of human help-seeking behaviors. It has revealed profound insights into the complexity and sophistication of help-seeking behaviors in both human children and chimpanzees. Both species demonstrate the ability to discern when help is necessary, indicating an evolutionary depth to strategic help-seeking behaviors. Human children exhibit an advanced level of social intelligence by considering not only the helper's ability but also their willingness, potentially balancing the need for support with maintaining social harmony. Furthermore, the project's cross-cultural studies show that children from diverse cultures employ similar strategies in epistemic help-seeking, particularly in recognizing the need for additional information during disagreements. Additionally, children's adaptability in help-seeking—whether seeking independent solutions for future utility or immediate resolutions—demonstrates remarkable cognitive flexibility.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Human altruistic helping has deep evolutionary and developmental roots: Both human children and our closest non-human relatives - chimpanzees - often pay a cost to benefit another individual. Previous research on helping has nearly exclusively focused on the helper, i.e. the individual providing the help. However, helping also involves someone who is being helped. A helpee is not just a passive recipient of help, but someone who can actively and flexibly increase the chances of being helped, for example by being strategic in whom to ask for help. When determining who is willing to help, two questions are of particular relevance: (a) How costly is it for the potential helper to help? (b) What is my relationship with the potential helper? Considering the costs of and one’s relationship to potential helpers is crucial when soliciting help. Although it can significantly improve an individual's fitness, it has never been studied systematically when it evolved in our evolution and how it develops over ontogeny. Thus, unraveling the phylogenetic and ontogenetic roots of human’s strategic help-seeking is the objective of the proposed project. Therefore, I would like to conduct two interdisciplinary projects with human children and chimpanzees. In Project 1, I will investigate whether considering the costs of potential helpers for providing help influences the decision whom to ask for help, with costs operationalised either as physical effort (Study 1) or material sacrifice (Study 2). In Project 2, I will study the effects of social relations to the potential helpers on the help-seeking desision, considering in particular friendship (Study 3) and dominance (Study 4). Using an innovative approach – combining observations of naturally occurring behaviors and carefully controlled experiments – this project will be the first to provide insight into the evolutionary and developmental roots of strategic help-seeking.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

DEUTSCHES PRIMATENZENTRUM GMBH · GOTTINGENКоординаторГермания
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA · OaklandСъединени щати