Study: Humans are the only primates that are kind to others

When given the opportunity to perform a separate maneuver that would deny another chimp access to a reward of peanuts, the chimps tried the maneuver a few times and finally stopped.

“Chimpanzees did not act to produce benefits for others in a helping context,” the authors of the new research wrote. Even the prospect of gaining status, or a reputation for generosity, did not seem to sway them to pull that peanut lever for a fellow chimp, the authors of the research wrote: The chimp with access to the dispenser could see that the other chimp could see it, and that the other chimp knew that its actions were making the peanuts come down the chute.

But that was not, evidently, reason enough to bother to pull the lever.

Any benefits or harms that came to a fellow chimp as a result of pulling the lever “did so as incidental byproducts of a personal interest in the stimulus,” and not to kindness, wrote the authors in the journal Nature Communications.