{"id":9227,"date":"2014-03-20T05:05:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T05:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/?p=9227"},"modified":"2025-08-04T13:34:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:34:24","slug":"pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\/","title":{"rendered":"New Pepperberg Research: Can Parrots Share?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_44120\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44120\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-44120\" src=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"close up profile on head of an African grey parrot\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-44120\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/a-close-up-of-a-bird-with-a-blurry-background-Ajlerk4SHy0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bro Takes Photos\/Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t take research to know that getting young children to understand sharing \u2014 whether toys, snacks or a favorite book \u2014 can be a challenge; just ask any parent! But children do eventually grasp the concept. Interestingly, some research has shown that most children even have a tendency, as they mature, to act so as to avoid inequality.<\/p>\n<p>Sharing seems to be less common in our nonhuman primate relatives, and appears to occur only under some fairly specific conditions. But what about creatures that are not primates? Our recent studies suggest that <a href=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/species\/african-grey-parrot\/\">African grey parrots<\/a> also can engage in sharing behavior.<\/p>\n<h2>Do Parrots Care To Share?<\/h2>\n<p>My students and I started looking into this possibility, because sharing in <a href=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/species\/parrot\/\">parrots<\/a> does occur in the wild. In a mated pair, for example, birds often share food or engage in reciprocal preening, and often don\u2019t have to be related to be willing to preen each other. We also know that, in the wild, a single parrot is a dead bird, because it can\u2019t both forage and scan for predators. Thus parrots in flocks engage in sentinel behavior where one bird sits up in a tree on watch for predators while the rest of the flock eats. It may not be on an exact tit-for-tat basis, but they do share that behavior, because one bird is not always going to be the sentinel. The idea is that it may be my turn now, but it\u2019s going to be your turn eventually.<\/p>\n<p>We ran two different experiments to see if African grey parrot Griffin would be willing to share with his human trainers and caretakers. In the first experiment, Griffin and humans, working in dyads (twos), took turns choosing one of four differently colored cups with differing outcomes: empty (null, non-rewarding), selfish (keeping reward for oneself), share (sharing a divisible reward), or giving (donating reward to other). The human dyads involved three different trainers with different specific intentions (selfish, giving, or copying the bird\u2019s behavior). In that situation, Griffin was willing to share a reward with a human who was willing to give up her reward (note that he didn\u2019t simply copy the human and give up his reward, but was willing to share), was selfish with the selfish human, but only tended toward sharing with the copycat human.<\/p>\n<p>We theorized that Griffin\u2019s inability to understand the copycat condition fully \u2014 that he could potentially maximize reward by choosing to share \u2014 was a consequence of his viewing the copycat\u2019s behavior as erratic compared with the consistently selfish or giving humans and thus not realizing that he was indeed being mirrored. We suggested that copycat trials subsequently be performed as a separate experiment, without being contrasted with trials in which humans acted consistently, in order to determine if results might have differed. We have now performed that experiment, and found that Griffin responded in a manner suggesting that he deduced the appropriate contingencies. This new study also suggests that birds like Griffin are capable of thinking ahead and understanding how their actions in the near term will affect those of their human partners in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, in the first experiment, Griffin wasn\u2019t simply copycatting what the student was doing; he wasn\u2019t being altruistic, as was the student, but was willing to share what might seem like the bonus in the green cup. In effect, he was saying, \u201cIf you\u2019re willing to <i>give<\/i> me something, I\u2019m willing to <i>share<\/i> with you.\u201d He was clearly maximizing his reward. In the latter experiment, he understood that if he shared now, the student would share next.<\/p>\n<p>Although he didn\u2019t start the second experiment by sharing at a statistically significant rate in the first sessions with both students, over time, he came to understand, at a statistically significant level, that he would indeed get a better payoff by picking the green cup \u2014 and sharing the reward. That\u2019s not to say Griffin didn\u2019t occasionally choose the pink cup even late in the experiment (which garnered him the same immediate reward), but he realized that every time he chose pink and got a treat, then on the <i>next<\/i> round, he didn\u2019t, and thus reverted to sharing. Interestingly, even at the beginning, he rarely chose either the orange or purple cup, seemingly remembering what they represented over the many months that had elapsed between the experiments.<\/p>\n<p>Note that for Griffin to succeed, it was important that we separated out the so-called \u201ccopycat\u201d sessions from the others where the students all acted either selfishly or generously. Although he might have eventually understood the linkage between his actions and the copycat student in the first experiment, he certainly had an easier time when the trials were run independently and the contingencies were clearer.<\/p>\n<p>*<em>Special thanks to Peter Reuell, Harvard staff writer for input on this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>Click this <a href=\"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2013\/12\/polly-want-a-vocabulary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">video link<\/a> to get an insider\u2019s view of Dr. Pepperberg\u2019s lab and meet her grey flock.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sharing seems to be less common in our nonhuman primate relatives, and appears to occur only under some fairly specific conditions. But what about creatures that are not primates? Our recent studies suggest that African grey parrots also can engage in sharing behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":44120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","bird-type-african-grey"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New Pepperberg Research: Can Parrots Share? &#8211; Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sharing seems to be less common in our nonhuman primate relatives, and appears to occur only under some fairly specific conditions. But what about creatures that are not primates? Our recent studies suggest that African grey parrots also can engage in sharing behavior.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Pepperberg Research: Can Parrots Share? &#8211; Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sharing seems to be less common in our nonhuman primate relatives, and appears to occur only under some fairly specific conditions. But what about creatures that are not primates? Our recent studies suggest that African grey parrots also can engage in sharing behavior.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lafeber\u00ae Pet Birds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-20T05:05:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-04T18:34:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/pet-birds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Irene Pepperberg, Ph.D.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Irene Pepperberg, Ph.D.\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Irene Pepperberg, Ph.D.\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e2384637ed0fac4b764f548a0441622d\"},\"headline\":\"New Pepperberg Research: Can Parrots Share?\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-20T05:05:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-04T18:34:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":854,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/03\\\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Behavior\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/\",\"name\":\"New Pepperberg Research: Can Parrots Share? &#8211; Pet Birds by Lafeber Co.\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/pepperbergs-parrot-research-can-parrots-share\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/03\\\/african-grey-head-un-Ajlerk4SHy0.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-20T05:05:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-04T18:34:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lafeber.com\\\/pet-birds\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e2384637ed0fac4b764f548a0441622d\"},\"description\":\"Sharing seems to be less common in our nonhuman primate relatives, and appears to occur only under some fairly specific conditions. 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You can help Dr. Pepperberg continue the groundbreaking parrot research she began more than 30 years ago with Alex, the African grey parrot who won admirers from around the world with his cognitive abilities. If you shop online through sites such as Amazon.com, you can designate the Alex Foundation to receive a percentage of your final sales, or register with the Alex Foundation at iGive.com and a percentage of sales from companies associated with iGive will go to the foundation. The Alex Foundation also has a \u201cDonate\u201d button linked to PayPal. Visit\u00a0The Alex Foundation\u00a0and click on the \u201cSupport Us\u201d link for more information. 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