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Article published In: Interaction Studies
Vol. 21:3 (2020) ► pp.353–386

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How apes get into and out of joint actions

Shared intentionality as an interactional achievement

 | University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
 | University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
 | La Vallée des Singes Zoological park, France
 | University of California San Diego, USA
 | University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland | University of St Andrews, Scotland
 | University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Published online: 9 February 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18048.gen
Abstract
Compared to other animals, humans appear to have a special motivation to share experiences and mental states with others ( (2006). Social actions, social commitments. Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction, 126–150.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 31). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), which enables them to enter a condition of ‘we’ or shared intentionality (Tomasello, M., & Carpenter, M. (2005). The emergence of social cognition in three young chimpanzees: III. Understanding intentional action. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Shared intentionality has been suggested to be an evolutionary response to unique problems faced in complex joint action coordination (Levinson, S. C. (2006). On the human “interaction engine.” In S. C. Levinson & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 39–69). Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(5), 675. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and to be unique to humans ( (2014). A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The theoretical and empirical bases for this claim, however, present several issues and inconsistencies. Here, we suggest that shared intentionality can be approached as an interactional achievement, and that by studying how our closest relatives, the great apes, coordinate joint action with conspecifics, we might demonstrate some correlate abilities of shared intentionality, such as the appreciation of joint commitment. We provide seven examples from bonobo joint activities to illustrate our framework.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Shared intentionality
    • 2.1Defining shared intentionality: Ability vs. process-based approaches
    • 2.2Shared intentionality in great apes?
    • 2.3Shared intentionality as a collaborative process
  • 3.Joint action coordination in humans and its application to great apes
  • 4.Joint action coordination in great apes
    • 4.1Candidate activities for the study of joint action in great apes
    • 4.2Examples of joint action coordination in bonobos
      • 4.2.1Example (1): Opening of grooming interaction between two adult males
        • 4.2.1.1Pre-entry
        • 4.2.1.2Entry
      • 4.2.2Example (2): Opening of play interaction between an adult male and an infant male
        • 4.2.2.1Entry
      • 4.2.3Example (3): Interruption and resumption of grooming (in main body) between an adult female and an adult male
        • 4.2.3.1Interruption
      • 4.2.4Example (4): Interruption and resumption of grooming (in main body) between an adult female and an adult male
        • 4.2.4.1Interruption
      • 4.2.5Example (5): Interruption and resumption of grooming (in main body) between an adult female and an adult male
        • 4.2.5.1Interruption
      • 4.2.6Example (6): Closing of a play interaction between an adult male and an infant male
        • 4.2.6.1Exit
      • 4.2.7Example (7): Closing of a grooming interaction between two adult females
        • 4.2.7.1Exit
  • 5.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (163)
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2025. Many-strategy games in groups with relatives and the evolution of coordinated cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 605 ► pp. 112089 ff. DOI logo
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2025. Going Dennettian about Gricean communication. Philosophical Psychology 38:4 ► pp. 1271 ff. DOI logo
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2025. Infrastructure of mother-infant interactions across development in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the wild. Evolution and Human Behavior 46:2 ► pp. 106671 ff. DOI logo
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2024. Coordination in social learning: expanding the narrative on the evolution of social norms. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14:2 DOI logo
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2024. The ability to inhibit impulses is related to social behavior in long‐tailed macaques. American Journal of Primatology 86:2 DOI logo
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2024. Bodies at play: the role of intercorporeality and bodily affordances in coordinating social play in chimpanzees in the wild. Frontiers in Psychology 14 DOI logo
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2023. Overcoming bias in the comparison of human language and animal communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120:47 DOI logo
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2023. Communication for collaborative computation: two major transitions in human evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 378:1872 DOI logo
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2023. Chimpanzees communicate to coordinate a cultural practice. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 290:1991 DOI logo
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2024. Thresholds of human cooperation: constructing the developmental niche of shared intentionality. Biology & Philosophy 39:6 DOI logo
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2022. Revisiting the human ‘interaction engine’: comparative approaches to social action coordination. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 377:1859 DOI logo
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2022. Coordinating social action: a primer for the cross-species investigation of communicative repair. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377:1859 DOI logo
Holler, Judith
2022. Visual bodily signals as core devices for coordinating minds in interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 377:1859 DOI logo
Melis, Alicia P. & F. Rossano
2022. When and how do non-human great apes communicate to support cooperation?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 377:1859 DOI logo
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2022. Towards integrating joint action research: Developmental and evolutionary perspectives on co-representation. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 143 ► pp. 104924 ff. DOI logo
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2022. Interaction and ostension: the myth of 4th-order intentionality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 377:1859 DOI logo
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2022. The coordination of attention and action in great apes and humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 377:1859 DOI logo
Zuberbühler, Klaus
2022. Social scripts as drivers of primate cooperation. In&Vertebrates DOI logo
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2021. Assessing joint commitment as a process in great apes. iScience 24:8 ► pp. 102872 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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