A study has found that Eurasian jays can pass a version of the ‘marshmallow test’ — and those with the greatest self-control also score the highest on intelligence tests.
This is the first evidence of a link between self-control and intelligence in birds.
Self-control — the ability to resist temptation in favour of a better but delayed reward — is a vital skill that underpins effective decision-making and future planning.
Jays are members of the corvid family, often nicknamed the ‘feathered apes’ because they rival non-human primates in their cognitive abilities. Corvids hide, or ‘cache’, their food to save it for later. In other words, they need to delay immediate gratification to plan for future meals. The researchers think this may have driven the evolution of self-control in these birds.
Self-control has been previously shown to be linked to intelligence in humans, chimpanzees and — in an earlier study by these researchers — in cuttlefish. The greater the intelligence, the greater the self-control.
The new results show that the link between intelligence and self-control exists across distantly related animal groups, suggesting it has evolved independently several times.
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