TY - JOUR
T1 - The Evolutionary Origins of Human Patience
T2 - Temporal Preferences in Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Human Adults
AU - Rosati, Alexandra G.
AU - Stevens, Jeffrey R.
AU - Hare, Brian
AU - Hauser, Marc D.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the animal caregivers of the Leipzig Zoo for their help working with the apes, and Patricia Kanngieser and Victoria Wobber for their assistance in data collection. Terry Burnham, Sarah Heilbronner, and Felix Warneken gave welcome comments on the manuscript. Finally we thank all the human participants for their involvement. B.H.'s research is supported by a Sofja Kovalevskaja award received from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research; M.H.'s research was supported, in part, by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research on Learning and Education grant and an NSF Human and Social Dynamics grant. The experiment at Harvard was approved by the Harvard University Committee on the Use of Human Subjects (Protocol #F13403-101). The testing of apes and human subjects in Leipzig was done in accordance with the laws of Germany.
PY - 2007/10/9
Y1 - 2007/10/9
N2 - To make adaptive choices, individuals must sometimes exhibit patience, forgoing immediate benefits to acquire more valuable future rewards [1-3]. Although humans account for future consequences when making temporal decisions [4], many animal species wait only a few seconds for delayed benefits [5-10]. Current research thus suggests a phylogenetic gap between patient humans and impulsive, present-oriented animals [9, 11], a distinction with implications for our understanding of economic decision making [12] and the origins of human cooperation [13]. On the basis of a series of experimental results, we reject this conclusion. First, bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) exhibit a degree of patience not seen in other animals tested thus far. Second, humans are less willing to wait for food rewards than are chimpanzees. Third, humans are more willing to wait for monetary rewards than for food, and show the highest degree of patience only in response to decisions about money involving low opportunity costs. These findings suggest that core components of the capacity for future-oriented decisions evolved before the human lineage diverged from apes. Moreover, the different levels of patience that humans exhibit might be driven by fundamental differences in the mechanisms representing biological versus abstract rewards.
AB - To make adaptive choices, individuals must sometimes exhibit patience, forgoing immediate benefits to acquire more valuable future rewards [1-3]. Although humans account for future consequences when making temporal decisions [4], many animal species wait only a few seconds for delayed benefits [5-10]. Current research thus suggests a phylogenetic gap between patient humans and impulsive, present-oriented animals [9, 11], a distinction with implications for our understanding of economic decision making [12] and the origins of human cooperation [13]. On the basis of a series of experimental results, we reject this conclusion. First, bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) exhibit a degree of patience not seen in other animals tested thus far. Second, humans are less willing to wait for food rewards than are chimpanzees. Third, humans are more willing to wait for monetary rewards than for food, and show the highest degree of patience only in response to decisions about money involving low opportunity costs. These findings suggest that core components of the capacity for future-oriented decisions evolved before the human lineage diverged from apes. Moreover, the different levels of patience that humans exhibit might be driven by fundamental differences in the mechanisms representing biological versus abstract rewards.
KW - SYSNEURO
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34848854248&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cub.2007.08.033
DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2007.08.033
M3 - Article
C2 - 17900899
AN - SCOPUS:34848854248
SN - 0960-9822
VL - 17
SP - 1663
EP - 1668
JO - Current Biology
JF - Current Biology
IS - 19
ER -