This is the conclusion of a study led by Duke University (USA) based on the ability to resist the urge to do something that is tempting but counterproductive , that is, self-control.
The team of researchers analyzed the self-control capacity of 567 animals of 36 different species through different tests. The first consisted of an opaque cylinder from which the animals had to retrieve a piece of food stored inside. After successfully solving this task, they changed the opaque cylinder to a transparent one, so that they could see the food inside and had to resist the temptation to jump directly into the food, thereby colliding with the cylinder.
According to the examination of the results, the great apes , such as orangutans or chimpanzees, performed the best in the experiments , while the smallest ones, such as squirrel monkeys, performed the worst.
" Regardless of their body size , species with larger brains did better at the self-control tasks we set for them," says study leader Evan L. MacLean.
The work, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), therefore concludes that species with larger brains have more self-control than species with small brains .
