WILLIAM J. DANIEL
The Psychological Laboratory of the University of North Carolina
Received May 20,1942
INTRODUCTION
Several experiments (2-5) have been presented which have more or less successfully demonstrated cooperative behavior in the higher apes. A few experiments (1, 6, 7), observational in character, have indicated this behavior in
children. Only one experiment, that of Wolfle and Wolfle (9) has attempted to
study cooperative behavior genetically by comparing the behavior of apes and
children in nearly identical experimental situations.
It has generally been believed that a study of cooperative behavior in animals
as far down the evolutionary scale as the rat is rather fruitless. Only one such
experiment (8) has come to the writer's attention. One of the three experiments
which constitutes that monograph was designed to test for cooperative behavior
in the rat. This experiment was negative; and aside from the films of Mowrer,
no other attempt to obtain cooperative behavior in rats has been reported. The
experiment reported here represents an apparently successful attempt at obtaining cooperation and one which relies primarily on quantitative data.
PROBLEM
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WILLIAM J. DANIEL
ANIMALS
Heterozygous albino rats were used, ten males and two females ranging from
90 to 107 days of age at the start of the experiment.
APPARATUS
The experimental situation consisted of a paraffined wood cage 22|* long x 12"
wide x 4\" high with a grid floor and a glass top. In the center of the cage a
1
Pivot 4
Grid floor
1/8" brass
rods $
apart
'
Wall atop
4
2"
Platform
y
\
12"
*.
food crock, flush with the grid, was placed 8" from the edge of the platform thus
making it impossible for a rat to feed from the platform.
This grid cage was mounted on a set of stilts thus facilitating the replenishing
and replacing of the food-crock. A small wooden wall stop was mounted over
the platform at the end of the cage forcing all rats to remain beyond its center
of gravity and making it impossible for a rat to administer shock without leaving
the platform. Thetiltingof the platform also completed a light circuit so that a
40 watt bulb Sashed whenever a rat received a shock. This facilitated an objective counting of the number of shocks administered by each rat.
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The rats were dropped onto the grid through a small glass door on the top
of the apparatus. Directly beneath this door a small entrance alley 6" long and
4 | " wide served to orient the animals in the proper direction, that is, facing
directly towards the food-crock and platform.
The shocking circuit
The grid was wired in series with a high resistance shocking circuit and the
platform automatically shorted out the grid when a rat stepped on it.
The essential problem here was to apply an electrical stimulus to the rats,
the physical constancy of which we could be reasonably assured. Our circuit
was of such a high external resistance that the added resistance of one or two rats
gave the same meter reading as when a copper wire was placed across the grid.
The transformer of this shocking circuit applied 3,750 volts to the rectifier tube
and the current at the shock grid terminals could be varied from 100 microamps
to 5 milliamps. The average shock intensity of 250 microamps required a circuit
resistance of 3,400,000 ohms.
PROCEDURE
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WILLIAM J. DANIEL
the rat did feed it was allowed to do so for 30 seconds so long as it started sometime within this 100 second interval.
By the end of the 13th day of the preliminary training the rats had mastered
this discrimination. When dropped on a cold grid the rat immediately went to
the food-crock and fed; when dropped on a hot grid the rat immediately went to
the platform and remained on it for 30 seconds. It made this discrimination in
less than a second or before the experimenter could get to his stop watch to
start timing the rat.
Thus at the conclusion of the preliminary training each animal had learned to
escape from shock or to feed in the apparatus depending upon the situation and
it had learned this individually and in isolation.
The experimental trials
At the end of the preliminary training the rats were divided into pairs of as
nearly equal weight as possible.
In the experimental trials two rats were put into the cage with the grid electrified and the food-crock in place. They remained in the experimental cage for
one trial of 120 seconds duration. They were run 12 trials a day, a total of 1440
seconds, which, on the basis of preliminary experimentation, was adequate for
the hunger satiation of both animals. The trial was timed by an electric stopclock and the individual feeding times by a manually operated stop-watch.
Throughout the experimental trials the apparatus operated automatically.
With one or both rats on the platform the shock was off. With the grid not
charged, a rat could feed at the food-crock. Thus at least one rat had always
to be on the platform if the other was to get to the food-crock. Occasionally
both rats would leave the platform and attempt to feed and take shock simultaneously. If this behavior persisted for 5 consecutive times the shock was
increased 50 microamps, and this "double feeding" stopped.
The rats were fed pulverized purina dog chow mixed with water in the ratio
of 5:6 respectively. At no time did the rats receive food other than that obtained in the experimental situation. This procedure was continued for 40 days
at which time it appeared that the rats were doing as well as they ever would.
RESULTS
The most significant fact in the data is that the rats exchanged positions from
food-crock to platform and from platform to food-crock. Many of these exchanges were accompanied by shock and many shocks were administered in
between these exchanges. It will be remembered that whenever there was any
shock both rats received it, but it was administered only by one rat (the platform
rat) stepping off the platform and thus electrifying the entire grid. As the experiment progressed more and more of the position shifts were accomplished
without shock. Also fewer and fewer shocks were administered which did not
result in an alternation. This data for 6 pairs of rats are presented in table 1.
Since we are most interested in the final stage of this behavior the data are given
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in terms of the mean performances for the last 5 days of the experiment as compared with the mean performances for the first 5 days of the experiment.
Notice that with the exception of pairs 1-2 and 9-10 the critical ratios indicate
that there is a marked and statistically significant decrease in the number of
shocks not resulting in an alternation. The shock seems to have been quite
effectively reduced.
The nature of the alternations is also important. Let us call one of these rats
A and the other B. Now if rat A is feeding at the food-crock he may return to
the platform and then again return immediately to the food-crock. We shall
call this exchange in position an "individual" alternation since it is accomplished
only by one rat. When rat B exhibits this behavior we shall also call this exchange in position an individual alternation. When rat A is at the food-crock
and returns to the platform and rat B comes off the platform and goes to the foodTABLE 1
1-2
3-4
6-6
7-8
9-10
11-12
18
15
92
14
25
95
14
68
89
92
89
93
C.I
-1.33
4.64
8.92
6.04
1.29
8.89
TABLE 2
PAHS
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
9-10
11-12
947
863
3748
957
1201
3271
97
94
97
94
95
99
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WILLIAM J. DANIEL
Another factor of importance is the extent to which the animals use the total
available time in the apparatus. Means of this data for the entire experiment
are given in table 4. Since they were run for 12 two-minute trials a day the
total available feeding time for each pair of rats is 1440 seconds a day. Occasionally both rats would go to the platform and remain on it together. This
is considered time wasted in as much as it is time during which food was available
for one or the other animal but was taken by neither. We can see that the rats
used practically all of the available feeding time. This speaks well for our final
choice of time interval and also indicates that the rats were actively working on
TABLE 3
SAT
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
ORAHS EATEN P E S
DAV
21
21
25
. 20
25
27
27
23
30
21
32
31
WEIGHT BEFORE I H E
EXPERIMENT
WEIGHT GADiZD
96
113
109
121
118
126
127
140
121
158
182
161
153
253
144
179
205
189
170
211
160
230
250
231
57
140
35
58
87
24
43
71
39
72
68
70
TABLE 4
the problem set by the experimental situation practically all of the time that they
were in the apparatus.
DISCUSSION AND INTERPRETATION
First of all let us re-emphasize the fact that this was a double motive situation.
Our original intention was to arrange these motives in an experimental situation
in such a manner that neither of them could be satisfied without the co-ordinated
efforts of both animals.
Rather than put the organism into an experimental situation and observe if it
exhibits "cooperative behavior" we attempt to put the animal through a pro-
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WILLIAM J. DANIEL
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS