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Yes. In a controlled experiment involving 26 chimpanzees at a sanctuary in Uganda, the animals pulled food trays away from friends less often than from nonfriends. The result suggests that social relationships can shape chimpanzee behavior, but it does not show that chimps understand friendship or fairness exactly as humans do.
What did the chimpanzee study find?
The chimpanzees stole less often in trials with friends than in trials with nonfriends. News coverage of the experiment reported tray pulling in 61% of friend-condition trials and 70% of acquaintance-condition trials. Those percentages describe behavior in this specific task; they are not estimates of how often chimpanzees steal food in everyday life.
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The study, “Chimpanzees steal less from their friends and expect them to do the same,” was published in Evolution and Human Behavior in November 2026. The authors examined both whether a chimp pulled the food tray and how the animals responded emotionally when a theft occurred. The journal record identifies the article as volume 47, issue 6, article 106948.
How did the researchers define friends?
“Friend” was a research classification based on observed social relationships, not a label assigned by the chimpanzees or a direct measure of human-style friendship. Researchers used 800 hours of observations of naturally occurring interactions to classify pairs as friends or nonfriends.
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The experiment involved 26 chimpanzees living at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. Researchers matched friend and nonfriend pairs on sex and dominance rank, helping them focus the comparison on relationship condition rather than those characteristics. The study therefore speaks to sanctuary chimpanzees in a structured setting, not to all chimpanzees or to wild populations.
What happened in the food-theft task?
One chimpanzee had access to a tray bearing pineapple while another chimpanzee was feeding from it. The potential thief could pull the tray away, taking food from the partner. Researchers compared this behavior in friend and nonfriend pairings.
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The setup made the choice concrete: pulling the tray could secure food for one animal at the other’s expense. Yet it was still a designed experiment, not an observation of spontaneous food sharing or theft in the forest. The trial proportions reported in news coverage should be read within that distinction.
How did the chimps react when food was taken?
The animals’ emotional responses also differed by relationship condition and role. Victims initially tended to show more negative emotion after a theft in the friend condition than in the nonfriend condition, though that response diminished as the trials continued. Thieves showed more negative emotion in the nonfriend condition, a pattern the researchers interpreted as indicating that those interactions felt more hostile.
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These are observed behavioral and emotional responses, not proof that chimpanzees made an explicit moral judgment. The pattern is consistent with social relationships affecting expectations and reactions, but it does not establish that the animals reason about fairness in the same way people do.
Does this mean chimpanzees understand friendship like people?
No conclusion that strong follows from this experiment alone. The findings support the narrower idea that the quality of a social relationship can influence whether chimpanzees take food from a partner and how they react when it happens.
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First author Oded Ritov, a University of California, Berkeley researcher, described the work as “the first study to show that they’re able to hold back antisocial behavior with their friends,” in a UC Berkeley research release. That is the authors’ interpretation of this study, not a settled claim about chimpanzees generally. The Berkeley release also cautions against directly projecting human emotions and behaviors onto other species.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What should readers take away?
- Chimpanzees pulled the pineapple tray less often in friend trials than in nonfriend trials.
- The friend classifications came from extensive observation of social interactions, rather than from a human assumption based on a brief encounter.
- Relationship condition was associated with different emotional responses from both victims and thieves.
- The evidence comes from 26 sanctuary chimpanzees and a controlled task, so it does not establish everyday theft rates or prove human-like moral reasoning.
The clearest conclusion is modest but meaningful: chimpanzee behavior around food can vary with social relationships. How closely that behavior maps onto human friendship, fairness, or expectations remains an open question.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where was the chimpanzee food study conducted?
The study involved chimpanzees at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. Its results do not by themselves establish whether the same pattern occurs among wild chimpanzees.
What food did the researchers use in the experiment?
The tray carried pineapple. The key measure was whether one chimpanzee pulled it away while another was feeding.
Who led the study on chimpanzees stealing from friends?
Oded Ritov was the study’s first author, and the research was published with coauthors in Evolution and Human Behavior. The article appeared in November 2026.
