The ability to behave in ways that benefit other individuals' well-being is among the most
celebrated human characteristics crucial for social cohesiveness. Across mammalian …

Modern humans live in an “exploded” network with unusually large circles of trust that form
due to prosociality toward unfamiliar people (ie xenophilia). In a set of experiments we …

Cumulative culture is a transformative force in human evolution, but the social
underpinnings of this capacity are debated. Identifying social influences on how …

Patterns of coalitionary aggression among female animals are generally explained by kin
selection theory. Frequent female coalitions are almost exclusively observed in female …

Empathy as a research topic is receiving increasing attention, although there seems some
confusion on the definition of empathy across different fields. Frans de Waal (de Waal FBM …

The extent of (in) equality is highly diverse across species of social mammals, but we have a
poor understanding of the factors that produce or inhibit equitable social organizations …

Evolutionary models consider hunting and food sharing to be milestones that paved the way
from primate to human societies. Because fossil evidence is scarce, hominoid primates …

In some species habitual same-sex sexual behavior co-occurs with high levels of intra-
sexual alliance formation, suggesting that these behaviors may be linked. We tested for such …

The vast majority of social animals exhibit sex-biased dispersal as a strategy to reduce kin
competition and avoid inbreeding. Piscivorous 'resident'killer whales, Orcinus orca, of the …

Humans closely monitor others' cooperative relationships [1, 2]. Children and adults willingly
incur costs to reward helpers and punish non-helpers—even as bystanders [3–5]. Already …