CHICAGO, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Chimpanzees often make decisions faster that benefit others than themselves, researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) have found.

For the study, 40 chimpanzees from the Republic of Congo completed tasks that assessed cooperation and self-control, including donation task, helping task and punishment task.

In donation task where the chimpanzee could provide food for both himself and a partner at no cost, or choose to only get food for himself, chimpanzees were more likely to pick the prosocial option if they made a fast choice, as though their gut reaction was to cooperate with the partner. If they took longer to decide, however, they were more likely to keep the food for themselves.

In helping task where the chimpanzee could give a partner an object that was out of reach, individual chimpanzees that were more likely to lend a hand were also the fastest to respond to their partner's problem.

Read the full article at Xinhua.