PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Miller, Rachael AU - Davies, James AU - Schiestl, Martina AU - Garcia-Pelegrin, Elias AU - Gray, Russell D. AU - Taylor, Alex H. AU - Clayton, Nicola S. TI - Social influences on delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and Eurasian jays AID - 10.1101/2023.07.14.549039 DP - 2023 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 2023.07.14.549039 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/07/14/2023.07.14.549039.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/07/14/2023.07.14.549039.full AB - Self-control underlies goal-directed behaviour in humans and other animals. Delayed gratification - a measure of self-control - requires the ability to tolerate a delay and/or invest more effort to obtain a reward of higher value over one of lower value, such as food or mates. Social context, in particular, the presence of competitors, may influence delayed gratification. We adapted the ‘rotating-tray’ paradigm, where subjects need to forgo an immediate, lower-quality (i.e. less preferred) reward for a delayed, higher-quality (i.e. more preferred) one, to test social influences on delayed gratification in two corvid species: New Caledonian crows and Eurasian jays. We compared choices for immediate vs. delayed rewards while alone, in the presence of a competitive conspecific and in the presence of a non-competitive conspecific. We found that species differed: jays were more likely to select the immediate, less preferred reward than the crows. We also found that jays were more likely to select the immediate, less preferred reward when a competitor or non-competitor was present than when alone, or when a competitor was present compared to a non- competitor, while the crows selected the delayed, highly preferred reward irrespective of social presence. We discuss our findings in relation to species differences in socio-ecological factors (adult sociality and food caching) and wider implications of social influences on self-control.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.