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Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees

Warneken, Felix, Tomasello, Michael·2006·Science

Abstract

Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees.

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Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. D. Bischof-Köhler, Z. Psychol. Z. Angew. Psychol.202, 349 (1994).
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Metadata

Authors
Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M.
Venue
Science
Published
2006-03-03
Volume
311
Issue
5765
Pages
1301-1303
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W2026567452
Cited by
1,642
References
23
FWCI
75.63
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.1121448
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Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121448

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