Jane Goodall’s Contributions: Studying Chimps, Understanding Humans

Jane Goodall, the world-renowned ethologist and anthropologist, passed away on October 1, 2025, marking the end of an era in primatology and animal behavioral research. Best known for her groundbreaking, decades-long study of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Goodall’s insights reshaped our understanding of human evolution, intelligence, and culture. What many do not fully appreciate is how her work also rippled through fields like behavioral economics and psychology. Her findings on innovation, social behavior, and culture among non-human primates forced a fundamental rethink of decision-making, cooperation, and the evolutionary roots of rationality.

While Jonathan Haidt has famously said that humans are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee (meaning we are largely selfish and competitive but capable of hive-like cooperation), Goodall demonstrated long before that chimpanzees are not far removed from us. Sharing 98.6 percent of our DNA, chimpanzees exhibit remarkable similarities to humans in behavior, emotion, tool use, social hierarchy, and communication. She blurred the boundary between species, not by argument but through patient observation and immersion in their world.

Goodall was undoubtedly one of the most influential scientists in ethology and primatology, but her impact extended far beyond. She shaped behavioral science by expanding our understanding of complex social systems, empathy, and cooperation across species. Her observations revealed that chimpanzees form lasting relationships, experience grief, pass on knowledge, and even wage war. These insights redefined what it means to be human by revealing how much of our behavior has roots in the animal kingdom.

Rather than observe from a distance, Goodall lived among the chimpanzees of Gombe for decades. She gave them names instead of numbers. She documented their lives with the care and detail one might reserve for close companions. Her approach transformed not only how primates are studied but how scientists approach the study of social behavior in general. Goodall’s work challenged the dominant scientific view of the time that placed humans above all other creatures. Instead, she showed that traits like empathy, innovation, and culture are not uniquely human, but shared and evolved across species lines. She was a pioneer in the field, often literally. Her most comprehensive work, The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (1986), remains a foundational reference in primatology. Below is a summary of some of her most widely cited scientific work that helped shape multiple disciplines.

Learning from the Chimpanzees: A Message Humans Can Understand (1998)

Published in Science, this short essay encapsulated one of Goodall’s core messages: that studying chimpanzees teaches us not only about them, but about ourselves. She argued that the emotional and intellectual lives of chimpanzees are real, complex, and meaningful. She challenged humanity to act on that knowledge with compassion and responsibility, especially as chimpanzees and other species face threats from habitat destruction and exploitation. The essay also served as a moral call to consider the ethical implications of our scientific and economic systems. For behavioral economists, this perspective emphasized that decision-making is deeply intertwined with emotion, empathy, and the social context in which individuals operate.

Conditions of Innovative Behaviour in Primates (1985)

In this groundbreaking paper co-authored with Hans Kummer, Goodall explored the ecological and social conditions under which primates develop new behaviors. The central insight was that innovation is not just a matter of raw intelligence but requires freedom: free time, surplus energy, and a low-pressure environment that allows experimentation. Goodall described vivid examples from her fieldwork: chimpanzees fashioning new tools, using leaves in novel ways, and even inventing social strategies to gain advantage or avoid conflict. These discoveries hinted at an evolutionary parallel to human creativity. For behavioral scientists, it suggested that environments promoting play, exploration, and safety are essential for the emergence of novel ideas and adaptive solutions.

The Influence of Dominance Rank on the Reproductive Success of Female Chimpanzees

In this study, Goodall and her colleagues used long-term data from Gombe to show that dominance rank among female chimpanzees significantly affects reproductive outcomes. High-ranking females experienced shorter intervals between births, had higher infant survival rates, and raised daughters who matured faster. These patterns revealed how access to resources and social capital shape opportunity and success, concepts that mirror those explored in human economic systems. The study added weight to the argument that many elements of human inequality have evolutionary precedents, and it offered a model for understanding how hierarchy, stress, and opportunity influence long-term outcomes in social species.

A Lasting Legacy

One of Goodall’s most widely celebrated contributions was her demonstration that chimpanzee communities differ in culture. Working with researchers across Africa, she helped document dozens of behaviors (such as grooming styles, tool-use methods, and food preferences) that varied between groups. These patterns were not dictated by environment alone. They were taught, shared, and passed on, establishing once and for all that chimpanzees have culture. This insight reshaped anthropology, psychology, and even economics, where the importance of local norms and inherited practices is now widely acknowledged.

Her legacy also lives on in how she approached science. Goodall refused to flatten behavior into statistics alone. She saw individuals, relationships, and emotional nuance. Her work was rich in narrative, grounded in the messy beauty of life itself.

Her passing came not long after the death of Daniel Kahneman. While their paths never directly crossed, both thinkers pushed back against sterile models of rationality. Kahneman studied human error and bias. Goodall studied animal emotion and complexity. Both reminded us that cognition cannot be understood without context, memory, and emotion.

Jane Goodall left more than books and data. The Jane Goodall Institute continues to support conservation, education, and advocacy around the world. Centers for primate research bear her name. In 2022, a newly discovered species of snake in the Peruvian Andes was named Tachymenoides harrisonfordi goodallae, in her honor—a tribute from the world of biology to someone who helped us understand life itself.