A Comparative Approach to Coordination: How Apes, Monkeys and Humans Respond to an Assurance Game with Equivalent Procedures

Abstract

Our research directly compares coordinated decision making across the entire primate lineage, including a new-world monkey, an old-world monkey, an ape, and humans, to help understand how decision making is different between these species. We find that the ability to coordinate on a mutually beneficial decision does vary across species, that there is variability within each taxonomic group, and that this variation overlaps between groups. Each species represents a continuum, with pairs of each species ranging from random outcomes to those which coordinate on the payoff dominant outcome. What differs is the frequency of payoff dominant outcomes within each species.