We invite participants to submit their abstracts by 30 November 2026. Please submit your abstract by email to: ccp_cultureconference2027@eva.mpg.de When submitting your abstract, please indicate wh…

Despite increasing efforts to diversify the field of animal behaviour, systemic barriers continue to limit access and inclusion for researchers from h…

A new study assesses how cognitive skills of great apes vary between individuals.

Abstract. The capacity to represent the mental states of other individuals, known as ‘mindreading’ or ‘theory of mind’, is key to successful social predict

YouTube video by Johns Hopkins University

Language learning is a multi-threaded, multi-mechanism process. It is multi-threaded in that it emerges as a byproduct of addressing multiple goals while engaging in social interactions. It is multi-m...

Abstract. Researchers conducting experimental work on sociocognitive development in childhood typically study one-on-one interactions. This approach aligns

Compared to other species, the extent of human cooperation is unparalleled. Such cooperation is coordinated between community members via social norms. Developmental research has demonstrated that ver...

Communications Psychology - Groups of two or four chimpanzees encountered a collective resource sustainability problem. Quartets avoided resource collapse for longer than dyads, with group social...

Humans are adept at navigating the social world in part because we flexibly map the locations and identities of agents around us. While field studies suggest primates can track individual conspecifics...

Humans' beliefs are automatically impacted by others' beliefs. This so-called altercentric influence indicates that we rely on automated mental simula…

Scientific Reports - Social learning leads to inflexible strategy use in children across three societies

Putting oneself, mentally, in someone else’s shoes is traditionally considered a late-developing, cognitively demanding skill thought to critically un…

A classic feature of human memory is that we remember information better when it refers to ourselves. Here, the authors show that before the emergence of self-concept, infants instead remember informa...

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig launches German-Namibian research project

Curiosity is adaptive, enhances learning, and reduces uncertainty. Social curiosity is defined as the motivation to gain information about the actions, relationships, and psychology of others. Little ...

Non-human primates engage in complex collective behaviours, but existing research does not paint a clear picture of what individuals cognitively represent when they act together. This study investigat...