Friendship
Read the passage given below carefully.
1.Friendship may not be unique to humans. Even in the animal world friendship plays a role. This is especially the case in the case of primates, such as chimpanzees. Like humans, they also bond with each other based on trust. The friendship among chimpanzees thus has become a subject of research in recent times. The findings have revealed that friendship based on trust among chimpanzees evolves much earlier than was previously thought. Work in this regard has been going on at several centres, and the findings of some of them have been made public.
2. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig, in Germany, is o such institute. The researchers there observed the interactions of 15 chimpanzees over a five-month period. They based their findings in the categories of `friend’ and `non-friend’. The researchers observed friendship among the pairs of animals in the regions of grooming one another, eating together, among others. Thereafter the researchers made the animals play a modified version of what has known the human trust game both with chimpanzees in the `friend’ category and in the non-friend’ According to the researchers, “…we investigated whether chimpanzees show a comparable pattern and extend trust selectively toward those individuals they are closely bonded with. Our findings suggest that they do indeed, and thus that current characteristics of human friendships have an Ion evolutionary history and extend to primate social bonds.”
3. Earlier studies had shown that chimpanzees have relationships that look something like friendships as they were seen to extend favours preferentially toward selected individuals. The question was: are those interactions based on trust? To find out, Engelmann and Esther Herrmann observed the interactions of fifteen chimpanzees living at Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Kenya, over a five-month period. Based on their observations, the researchers identified each chimpanzee’s do “friend” and a “non-friend”.
4. Their methodology included a game which included chimpanzees pulling at a `no-trust rope’ and `trust rope’. If the `no-trust’ was pulled by a chimpanzee the first chimp got immediate access to food that it did not especially like, together with the option of sending a treat back to the first chimp. When a chimpanzee pulled the `trust’ rope, the earlier chimpanzee which had pulled the ‘no-trust’ rope, who got immediate access to a much more tempting option to send a treat back to the earlier chimpanzee. Thus the trust rope offered the potential for a win-win situation, provided the other chimp trusted the other enough to send something back.
5. Besides assessing inter-chimpanzee friendships, the results of these experiments showed that there was much greater trust between friends than non-friends. As the researchers explain it, “chimpanzees were significantly more likely to voluntarily place resources at the disposal of a partner, and thus to choose a risky but potentially high-payoff option, when they interacted with a friend as compared to a non-friend.
6. Contrary to popular thinking researchers observed that chimpanzees were more likely to voluntarily place resources at the disposal of a partner. Though the move was a risky one, with the potential to offer a high pay-off option with a friend, it offered long-term emotional bonds with other chimpanzees. Thus these friendships show important parallels with close relationships among humans, including that of selectively trusting friends in costly situations.
(I) On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer the following questions with the help of the given options:
(a) The research at the Max Planck Institute is on the——————–
(i) friendly interactions among humans
(ii) friendship between chimpanzees and humans
(iii) friendship among chimpanzees
(iv) studies between trusted chimpanzees
(b) Chimpanzees voluntarily place resources at the disposal of a partner because of they——-
(i) offered long-term emotional bonds with other chimpanzees
(ii) could share treats they liked
(iii) are primates
(iv) are closely related to humans
(II) Answer the following questions briefly.
(a) What are the findings of trust-based friendships among chimpanzees?
(b) What was the strength and duration of research on chimpanzees at the Max Plank Institute?
(c) What was the main thrust of the research?
(d) What advantage did a ‘no-trust’ pull of the rope offers a chimpanzee?
(e) Where did chimpanzees voluntarily place their trust?
(f) To whom did the chimpanzees voluntarily place their resources?
(III) Find words from the passage which mean the same as:
(a)similar features (para 6)
(b)connected with gradual development and change (para 2)
Answers:-
(I)(a) (iii) friendship among chimpanzees
(b) (i) offered long-term emotional bonds with other chimpanzees
(II) (a) It was found that the trust-based friendships had evolved much earlier than was previously thought.
(b)The research was done on 15 chimpanzees over 15 months at the Max Planck Institute.
(c)The main thrust of the research was to investigate whether chimpanzees extend trust selectively toward those chimpanzees they are closely bonded with. The findings were in the affirmative.
(d) The advantage was that a chimpanzee may send a treat back to the earlier chimpanzee.
(e)Chimpanzees voluntarily placed their trust with a friend and partner rather than with a non-friend.
(f)Researchers found that chimpanzees would voluntarily place their resources at the disposal of a partner as it would help them build long-term emotional bonds with other chimpanzees.
(III) (a) parallels
(b) evolutionary
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