Induction of a social differentiation in human groups submitted to an experimental situation based on the rodent diving-for-food model

In nature, many forms of organization have been observed in animal societies in response to an environmental constraint. Many mammal species adapt to the constraint by developing a complex and flexible system of social behaviors. This requires the implication of a kind of cognition named the social cognition that allows to everyone to construct mental representations of other members of the social group, as well as of the relations between them. Knowledge of this web of relations is essential for the expression and adaptation of individual behavior. In rodents, the diving-for-food model is an experimental situation that is suitable to provide a large set of information for studying the implication of this type of cognitive processes in the social organization of groups faced to an environmental constraint. This is a model in which the food accessibility is made difficult by progressively immersing the only way of access with water, leading to the emergence of a behavioral differentiation in groups of rats faced with this constraint [1, 2, 3]. To be more precise, a single food source is located at the end of an aquarium, so that rats have to dive and swim under water to get the food, and they have to go back to the cage where congeners are present, to eat it. In these conditions, a behavioral differentiation based on social interactions appears between Carrier rats which dive and bring the food back to the home cage, and the Non-Carrier animals which never dive and obtain their food by stealing it from the other members of the group. The present communication will describe the experimental situation, the procedure and the behavioral characteristics of a human model that consists of a transposition of the rodent diving-for-food model in every respect.