Primatologists are interested in the topic of altruism in orderto determine where the human behavior arises. Altruism is definedas actions that benefit another individual but at some potentialrisk or cost to oneself. The act of ‘doing a good deed’ for othersin humans counts as altruism, because there is some level ofsacrifice in effort or resources from the individual that helps theother. Scientists argue that there are ulterior motives on the partof primates that they study. The good deed will be returned at alater date. We can test the importance of altruism among humanswith this small science project.
Goal: Assess the degree of altruism among humans. Does it isexist? Method: Groom someone or do something altruistic to helpsomeone who you will see in the near future for several days. Thenassess whether they feel compelled to return the favor. Forexample, you may actually groom someone by pretending to picksomething off of their clothes or buying them coffee. Then put themin the same but opposite situation later on. You could leavesomething on your clothes to see if they pick it off. You can tryother forms of social grooming such as complementing someone aswell. Will they return the favor later on? Try to devise new andoriginal ways to test this idea of altruism through grooming.
Write up: Does this act bring you closer? What does it say aboutthe grooming among humans? Is this evidence that it was selectedfor as a behavioral trait? Also try to explain WHY it came about asa behavioral trait (or WHY it didn’t if the data comes outnegative).
