Désirée Brucks

Désirée Brucks is a scientific collaborator at the Albrecht Daniel Thaer Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences within Humboldt University’s Faculty of Life Sciences. Her research focuses on animal behavior and cognition, specializing in prosociality, self-control, inequity aversion, and social learning across species like parrots, dogs, wolves, horses, and pigs. She employs comparative approaches to understand evolutionary and domestication influences on cognitive traits.

Research Themes:

• Prosocial behavior in birds and mammals
• Delay of gratification in domesticated and wild species
• Impact of social context on decision-making
• Methodological critiques in cognitive testing

Publications exhibit trends in animal cognition, with emphasis on social dynamics, reward processing, and experimental paradigms. Notably, she explores species-specific differences in cooperation and emotional responses to inequity.