There is an opinion that older people choose their friends more carefully because they want to spend the rest of their life
time with maximum benefit.Chimpanzees are intelligent primates, but they are not aware of the finitude of life. Most likely, some other processes are taking place in their minds that explain why in old age their relationships with others become more positive.Richard Wrangham, one of the authors of the study, professor at Harvard University in the USA
Although there is evidence that some animalsstill understand the finiteness of life. However, it is unlikely that they have the same impending sense of mortality that humans experience. Thus, the results of the study suggest that a different, deeper mechanism is at work here.
Scientists have observed how primatescommunicate with each other, in what relationship they are and how their social habits change with age. The monkeys studied included both relatively young individuals, 15 years old, and elderly chimpanzees, who have lived for over 40 years.
It turned out that older individuals communicate with theirpeers differently than young people. The young people had a fairly wide circle of friends, and they also looked after their relatives, expecting nothing in return. But older individuals, on the contrary, had much fewer friends, but maintained warmer relationships with them.
According to Wrangham and his colleagues, in this regardchimpanzees are virtually indistinguishable from humans. As people age, they also choose their friends more carefully, and also prefer to behave as positively as possible with them. So far, scientists cannot say for sure whether this feature of the psychology of humans and chimpanzees has a common neurophysiological and genetic connection.
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