Rats play tit-for-tat instead of integrating social experience over multiple interactions

Theoretical models of cooperation typically assume that agents use simple rules based on last encounters, such as “tit-for-tat”, to reciprocate help. In contrast, empiricists generally suppose that animals integrate multiple experiences over longer timespans. Here we compared these two alternative hypotheses by exposing Norway rats to partners that cooperated on three consecutive days but failed to cooperate on the fourth day, and to partners that did the exact opposite. In additional controls, focal rats experienced cooperating and defecting partners only once. In a bar-pulling setup, focal rats based their decision to provide partners with food on last encounters instead of overall cooperation levels. To check whether this might be due to a lack of memory capacity, we tested whether rats remember the outcome of encounters that had happened three days before. Cooperation was not diminished by the intermediate time interval. We conclude that rats reciprocate help mainly based on most recent encounters instead of integrating social experience over longer timespans.