Even before most human babies can say “mama,” they can tease. This behavior is important, because playful teasing is a critical part of human interaction and development. A baby must have enough social intelligence and be able to recognize and appreciate that their actions can mess with another person’s expectation of what’s coming next.
[Related: The best science jokes to make you laugh, groan, and Google.]
Teasing can start when human babies are as young as eight months-old, but we are not the only primates who can do it. This silly behavior has now been documented in four different species of great ape. These basic forms of humor likely evolved in the human lineage at least 13 million years ago. The findings are described in a study published February 13 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences.
“Great apes are excellent candidates for playful teasing, as they are closely related to us, engage in social play, show laughter and display relatively sophisticated understandings of others’ expectations,” Isabelle Laumer, a study co-author and primatologist and cognitive biologist affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, said in a statement.
Play and provocative non-compliance
Early teasing generally involves an infant pulling off some kind of surprise. Babies can playfully offer a toy and then take it back. Psychologists call this behavior provocative non-compliance. Developmentally, it shows that a baby is beginning to understand that there are social rules or expectations that can be violated.
In the study, a team of scientists from institutions in Germany and the United States observed captive orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. They analyzed spontaneous social interactions that appeared to be playful, mildly harassing, or…
Read the full article here