NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE: ‘Even very young babies can tell the difference between someone who’s helpful and someone who’s mean — and lab studies show that babies consistently prefer the helpers. But one of humans’ closest relatives — the bonobo — makes a different choice, preferring to cozy up to the meanies. That’s according to experiments described Thursday in the journal Current Biology, by scientists who wanted to explore the evolutionary origins of humans’ unusually cooperative behavior… This bias toward helpfulness seems almost hardwired in humans…
Humans might not want to interact with someone who is not nice, but it looks like bonobos interpret the meanie’s behavior as a sign of dominance. “Dominance is really important for apes because it determines access to resources, access to food and mating opportunities and things like that,” says Krupenye. “They’re attracted to an individual who might be a powerful friend or ally, as opposed to someone who is just generally helpful or pleasant”.’ SOURCE…
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