Articolo in rivista, 2020, ENG, 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.12.026

Are the roots of human economic systems shared with non-human primates?

Addessi, Elsa; Beran, Michael; Bourgeois-Gironde, Sachs; Brosnan, Sarah; Leca, Jean-Baptiste

ISTC CNR; Georgia State Univ; Ecole Normale Super; Ecole Normale Super; Georgia State Univ; Univ Lethbridge

We review and analyze evidence for an evolutionary rooting of human economic behaviors and organization in non-human primates. Rather than focusing on the direct application of economic models that a priori account for animal decision behavior, we adopt an inductive definition of economic behavior in terms of the contribution of individual cognitive capacities to the provision of resources within an exchange structure. We spell out to what extent non-human primates' individual and strategic decision behaviors are shared with humans. We focus on the ability to trade, through barter or token-mediated exchanges, as a landmark of an economic system among members of the same species. It is an open question why only humans have reached a high level of economic sophistication. While primates have many of the necessary cognitive abilities (symbolic and computational) in isolation, one plausible issue we identify is the limits in exerting cognitive control to combine several sources of information. The difference between human and non-human primates' economies might well then be in degree rather than kind.

Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 109 , pp. 1–15

Keywords

Economic behavior, Non-human primate economics, Economic games, Behavioral economics, Token-mediated exchange, Barter, Proto-monetary behavior, Value representation, Self-control, Delay of gratification, Numerosity, Risk proneness

CNR authors

Addessi Elsa

CNR institutes

ISTC – Istituto di scienze e tecnologie della cognizione