Human beings aren't the only ones who can delay gratification. Animals can be patient too.
Animals face similar challenges and are often forced to decide between a bird in the hand or two in the bush. For example, imagine being a chimpanzee feeding on fruits in a tree together with your troop. When a colobus monkey passes by, you will have to decide whether to leave the fruits you’ve already found in order to hunt after the larger gains of monkey meat, but the success of the hunt is uncertain and largely depends on whether your pals join the hunt.
So, how do different animal species perform in these tasks? As you might expect, our closest living relatives, bonobos and chimpanzees, exhibit a high degree of patience . But surprisingly, the apes evenwhen the task is about food rewards . Bonobos also seem to have a pretty good grasp on the social aspects of the situation: In one study, they were tested with a reliable and an unreliable experimenter. They then waited less often with the unreliable person .
Patience is sometimes thought of as a uniquely human personality trait, something that separates us from the animal world of instincts. But if birds and mammals can delay gratification for future rewards, perhaps patience is more widespread – and important – than we thought. A recent study has shown that cuttlefish maintained delay durations of up to 50 to 130 seconds . I wonder if Mischel would have guessed that one day a mollusk would pass his marshmallow test.Hillemann, F., Bugnyar, T.
Mischel, W. . The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control. Little Brown, New York: Little, Brown Spark.
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