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Social preference experiments in animals: Strengthening the case for human preferences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2012

Keith Jensen
Keith Jensen
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom. k.jensen@qmul.ac.ukhttp://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/staff/keithjensen.html
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Abstract

Guala appears to take social preferences for granted in his discussion of reciprocity experiments. While he does not overtly claim that social preferences are only by-products that arise in testing environments, he does assert that whatever they are – and how they evolved – they have little value in the real world. Experiments on animals suggest that social preferences may be unique to humans, supporting the idea that they might play a prominent role in our world.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 30 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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