Data from: Mechanisms of reciprocity and diversity in social networks: a modelling and comparative approach

Three mechanisms have been proposed to underlie reciprocation of social behaviors in gregarious animals: ‘calculated reciprocity’, ‘emotional bookkeeping’ and ‘symmetry-based reciprocity’. Among these explanations, emotional book-keeping has received the broadest support from experimental and observational studies. On the other hand, three individual-based models have shown that reciprocation may emerge via ‘symmetry-based reciprocity’, ‘emotional bookkeeping’, or a combination of both mechanisms. Here we use these three models to assess their relative fit with empirical data on reciprocation and social network structure across different groups and species of macaques. We collected grooming data from 14 groups and 8 macaque species and simulated each group in each model. We analyzed and quantitatively compared social network metrics of the empirical and the models’ grooming networks. The three models captured fairly well the features of observed networks, and fitted data from wild groups better than captive ones. The emotional bookkeeping model seemed on average to fit slightly better the social networks metrics observed in empirical data, but failed to reproduce some grooming patterns. The symmetry-based models, on the other hand, fitted better other network parameters (e.g. modularity). No model generally fitted the data better than the others, and the fit with some metrics (e.g. modularity, centralization index) was low even after optimization. Thus, our analyses indicate that in the models social interactions may be simpler than in reality and models may miss social processes (e.g. third-party awareness).

针对群居动物（gregarious animals）的社会行为互惠现象，已有三类机制被提出：算计性互惠（calculated reciprocity）、情感记账（emotional bookkeeping）以及基于对称性的互惠（symmetry-based reciprocity）。在上述解释框架中，情感记账模型获得了实验与观测研究最广泛的支持。另一方面，三项基于个体的模型（individual-based models）已证实，互惠行为可通过基于对称性的互惠、情感记账，或二者的结合机制产生。本研究采用上述三类模型，评估其与不同猕猴类群、物种间的互惠行为及社交网络结构的实证数据的拟合程度。我们收集了8个猕猴物种共14个类群的理毛行为数据，并在每类模型中对每个类群进行了模拟。随后，我们对实证数据与模型生成的理毛社交网络的各项网络指标进行了分析与定量比较。三类模型均能较好地复现观测网络的特征，且对野生类群数据的拟合效果优于圈养类群。平均而言，情感记账模型对实证数据中观测到的社交网络指标的拟合效果略佳，但无法复现部分理毛行为模式。而基于对称性的模型则对其他网络参数（如模块化（modularity））的拟合效果更优。并无任何一类模型能在整体上优于其他模型，即便经过优化，部分指标（如模块化、集中度指数（centralization index））的拟合度仍较低。综上，本研究分析表明，模型中的社交互动相较于现实更为简化，且模型可能遗漏了部分社交过程（如第三方认知（third-party awareness））。