Monk parakeets “test the waters” when forming new relationships

To mitigate potential risks and develop trust, strangers may “test the
waters” by gradually escalating the type of social investment from low
cost to high cost. We introduced four unfamiliar groups of feral monk
parakeets together and observed the sequence of social behaviors that
occurred as relationships developed. We then tested the effect of
relationship status (stranger vs familiar) on the probability of dyads
following predicted sequences. We also tested whether strangers who
progressed their relationships maintained higher rates of no-contact
proximity compared to dyads that did not. We found that stranger dyads,
but not familiar dyads, were more likely to (1) approach each other
without contact before making contact and (2) follow predicted sequences
of affiliative behaviors. Strangers that progressed to contact also had
higher rates of associations than did birds that never made contact. We
provide raw data and an R markdown file with code to reproduce all
analyses and figures.