Great Apes Love to Tease, Poke and Pester, Suggesting the Urge to Annoy Is Millions of Years Old

[Judi Lynn]

The desire to get a rise out of others is a 13-million-year-old trait humans and great apes share with a common ancestor, new research suggests

Christian Thorsberg
Daily Correspondent

February 15, 2024



In a study of great apes' playful antics, chimpanzees seemed to enjoy slapping adults, especially those that were dozing off. foshie via Flickr under CC BY 2.0 DEED

Teasing, poking and pestering—creatively perfected by human siblings across the globe—may be a far older pastime than we may have imagined, according to new research.

Scientists studying four primate species have discovered that young apes badger with the best of us, suggesting humans share the art of causing annoyance with some of our closest relatives. In a new paper published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers argue this shared behavior requires a complex cognitive understanding of emotions and social norms—and it formed the “building blocks” of humor as we know it today.

“The precursors for joking were there in the last common ancestor [13 million years ago],” Erica Cartmill, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-author of the study, tells the Atlantic’s Katherine J. Wu.

To better understand playful teasing and its role in social situations, the researchers analyzed 75 total hours of footage from great ape habitats in the San Diego and Leipzig zoos. In all, they counted 142 “strong examples of teasing” among nine bonobos, four gorillas, four orangutans and 17 chimpanzees, they write in the study.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/great-apes-love-to-tease-poke-and-pester-suggesting-the-urge-to-annoy-is-millions-of-years-old-180983791/