Posted on 05/05/2005 3:31:35 PM PDT by missyme
LOOK at the world's worst trouble spots and you can't fail to notice they have one thing in common: tit-for-tat attacks between warring parties. Escalation of violence is incredibly destructive, yet we humans find it very difficult to break the vicious cycle. It seems we are not good at conflict resolution. Perhaps we could learn a lesson or two from the spotted hyena.
Spotted hyenas are highly sociable. Like other animals that live in close-knit groups, they don't always get along. But spotted hyenas don't hold a grudge. Within about 5 minutes of a fight, the erstwhile combatants can often be seen playing, licking or rubbing one another, or engaging in other friendly acts to dissipate the tension. And they are not the only animals with a penchant for kissing and making up.
In their book Natural Conflict Resolution, Filippo Aureli from Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and Frans de Waal from the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, document reconciliation in no less than 27 species of primates. Bottlenose dolphins also do it. Even goats. So why can't we be more forgiving?
Admittedly, human interactions are far more complex. But perhaps we can draw some lessons from the study of conflict resolution in nature. Not only have ethologists discovered that it is a lot more common than you might expect, they are also working out the costs and benefits of conflict resolution. Their ideas about when, where and how reconciliation works in nature could help us to improve the chances of settling our own disputes.
When it comes to making up, our primate cousins get top marks. De Waal describes a typical incident in which Hennie, a young female chimp, has been slapped during a passing charge by Nikkie, the leader of the group. Hennie retires from the fray, at first caressing the spot where she was hit and then just lying in the grass and staring into the distance.
"More than 15 minutes later Hennie slowly gets up and walks straight to a group that includes Nikkie," de Waal writes. "Hennie approaches Nikkie, greeting him with a series of soft pant grunts. Then she stretches out her arm to offer Nikkie the back of her hand for a kiss. Nikkie's hand kiss consists of taking Hennie's whole hand rather unceremoniously into his mouth. This contact is followed by a mouth-to-mouth kiss."
“Reconciliation in bonobos is a notoriously sexy affair”Note, it is Hennie, the chimp who came off worst in the argument, who instigates the reconciliation. In fact, this is a general pattern for most instances of conflict resolution. Gabriele Schino from the National Research Council in Rome, Italy, even found it in goats. After she had induced conflict over food, she found that 16 per cent of all interactions between goats were reconciliatory, consisting of friendly acts such as grooming and muzzle rubbing between animals that had been fighting previously. As in primates, this was most often initiated by the loser of the fight.
Like hyenas and most primates, goats are sociable animals. And this seems to be one of the key attributes of species that go out of their way to resolve their conflicts. Hardly surprising then, that such behaviour is also found in dolphins. Although they seem to have happy grins perpetually plastered on their faces, dolphins are surprisingly aggressive. And, sure enough, they are big on conflict resolution, as Amy Samuels from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Massachusetts, and Cindy Flaherty from Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, have observed. While studying a small group of bottlenose dolphins at the zoo, Samuels and Flaherty noticed that after a fight opponents often engaged in "gentle rubbing" or "contact swims", in which one dolphin towed another through the water.
Stress-busting Documenting such interactions has made ethologists aware of just how common conflict resolution is in nature and they are developing theories about how conflict-resolving behaviour evolves. Their cost-benefit models attempt to make specific predictions about when and where potential combatants will devise non-aggressive ways to resolve disputes, and under what circumstances they will adopt special conciliatory behaviour to minimise the chances of further conflict after an altercation. These models are now being put to the test.
The benefits of being in a social group often depend on its stability. That means conflict resolution is likely to figure large in groups where aggression will really rock the boat - if the size of a group is important for its successful functioning, for example. If subordinate individuals were to defect every time they lost a fight, the group would be in a constant state of flux, with potentially disastrous results, in terms of less food, fewer individuals available to fight competing groups, and so on. Even if subordinates stayed put, without reconciliation they would probably have limited access to resources. Those who try to resolve conflicts can avoid this fate. That gives them an advantage over others who do not engage in this behaviour, and explains how it might have evolved.
But it takes two to kiss and make up. Why would the winner of a fight play ball? Because dominant individuals also have something to gain from reconciliation, it turns out. Without resolution, they can never be sure a fight won't flare up again. And that can lead to anxiety and raised levels of stress hormones called corticosteroids. These in turn compromise the immune system making individuals more likely to succumb to infection. Evidence of reconciliation's value as a stress-buster comes from physiological measurements taken before and after it occurs, showing that making up leads to a decreased heart rate.
Given these biological and psychological costs, it is not surprising that natural conflict resolution is rife in tightly knit social groups. In fact, reconciliation is so beneficial to a group of chimps that if neither of the warring individuals will initiate it, a third party may step in to broker a deal. Nevertheless, not all cases of aggression are equally likely to involve resolution, because the costs and benefits of reconciliation vary depending upon what caused the incident in the first place. Researchers have found, for example, that in primates at least, reconciliation almost never happens when individuals fight over food, whereas it is common following aggression that appears to have no specific motive. In general, fights over a finite resource tend to have a natural lifetime that ends when the resource is used up. Resolution is unnecessary because such fights are unlikely to affect long-term bonding between group members. Fights that are more nebulous in origin, by contrast, have the potential to flare up again unless there is closure.
Feuding families In addition, some pairs of combatants are more likely to seek reconciliation after a fight than others. One of the most influential models of natural conflict resolution is the valuable friendship model, suggested by de Waal and Aureli, which is built on the idea that the more you depend on another individual, the more costly it is to allow a rift to develop. Detailed controlled experiments testing the hypothesis are rare, but one study with long-tailed macaques found that reconciliation is indeed more likely after fights between partners who normally help each other get food than between other individuals. What's more, for a wide range of primates the most valuable social relationships tend to be among kin, and disputes within families often end in reconciliation. This is not the case with spotted hyenas, however. Kay Holecamp from Michigan State University and her team have found that hyenas are more likely to initiate reconciliation with non-kin than with kin. Not, they suggest, because family relationships are less valuable, but because kin may be more forgiving of one another than strangers are.
These are the benefits of reconciliation, but what of the costs? There must be some or you would expect to find conflict-resolving behaviours in all animals that live in groups and in all contexts. One possibility is that reconciliation requires a level of cognitive complexity beyond the reach of many species. The evidence, however, does not support this. Behaviours that are cognitively sophisticated tend to involve learning. But young animals are just as competent at reconciliation as adults. So if cognitive constraints do not seem to be the problem, what is?
An obvious answer is that when former aggressors come together to try to make up, fighting may re-ignite. One way around this problem is to adopt special reconciliation rituals that are hard to misinterpret. Indeed comparative studies reveal that in species where reconciliation is most common it is more likely to be associated with unique, unambiguous actions such as "embracing" in pig-tailed macaques and "grasping" in Tonkean macaques. But even this cannot get around the fact that the benefits of reconciliation may outweigh the costs for only one member of a warring pair. Finally, reconciliation may be unnecessary in certain societies. Ring-tailed lemurs, for example, are either friends, almost always interacting peacefully and to mutual benefit, or enemies who never get along. Between friends, reconciliation is unnecessary. Between enemies it is simply a waste of time.
As our understanding of natural conflict resolution grows, it is tempting to hope that we can apply what we have learned to improve human relations. The cost-benefit approach certainly looks like a step in the right direction, but we will need much more detailed work on non-humans before we can develop general predictions that might apply to us. The possibilities are tantalising, though.
Take the study of rhesus and stumptail monkeys done by de Waal and colleague Denise Johanowicz over a decade ago. Rhesus monkeys are aggressive and rarely opt for reconciliation; stumptails on the other hand have a talent for making up. The researchers wanted to see what would happen if they reared juveniles of the two species together. They found that the young stumptails exerted a benign influence over the slightly younger rhesus monkeys, whose behaviour towards other group members gradually became more and more conciliatory. The idea that natural conflict resolution can be taught by observation means that there is some hope for Homo sapiens.
The different reconciliation styles of chimpanzees and bonobos could also offer a pointer to human behaviour. Bonobo society is particularly harmonious, and one way they achieve this is through reconciliation. This is a notoriously sexy affair, often involving "mounts" and other erotic activities. In contrast, sex is far less important in chimp conflict resolution. But, according to de Waal, what really makes the difference is not the sexual element but who instigates reconciliation. Chimps follow the usual pattern, with the loser trying to make amends. For bonobos, however, it is the winner, the individual wielding the power, who makes the first move. Now there is a lesson for us all.
Obvioulsy your not a "Bonobos" in fact I bet most freepers are not BONOBOS
Turning the other cheek only gets the other cheek slapped.
Plus, I can't put a whole hand in my mouth.
Incidentally, most ethologists prefer to use baboons as ways to deduce human behavior. While they're far more distantly related to us than great apes, or even most other Old World Monkeys, they live in organizations and environments roughly analogous to those of our prehistoric ancestors.
I don't think making up is in the near future. Only a cataclysmic event will pull the country together IMO.
Heck, I think the blood's running pretty hot on FR in some circles still.
Why don't we just kiss and make up?
Because I ain't kissin' NO animals, NO guys and only ONE woman.
there is just one problem, animals are on the whole incapable of deception and manipulation, the animals that kiss and make up are genuine, humans are a whole different matter......has this person never read about the Trojan Horse
secondly with many other species of animals, you have loyalty to your pack but not others outside your pack and certainly not outside your species and it's killed or be killed, in other words they are as territorial and tribal as humans are, after all we are mammals....
and within packs, challenges to the leadership are either fights to the death or the loser is exiled.....someone let John Kerry know?
having said that human beings on the whole get along pretty well you consider all the people living on this planet, many in very overcrowded circumstances
I agree with you 100%.
The nice little scene described above involving Hennie and Nickie would not have taken place among a group of Black Face Chimpanzees. Quite the contrary.
Bonobo behavior is not the rule among animals. It is the exception.
We reconcile within our own groups (tribes). Wake me when two separte packs of wolves reconcile -- unless, you consider dominance a from of letting us all just get along.
So what they are saying is that if someone comes along and beats the crap out of you, you should go to them and be all sweet so they have no consequences and learn that it is ok to walk up and beat the crap out of you and if you don't go to them and beg them to like you, that makes YOU a bad person?
Bullcrap. But then again, maybe I am part of the problem because I don't want to live like that.
[Article: “Perhaps we could learn a lesson or two from the spotted hyena.” ]
Bloody battle between lions and hyenas: Strange and spectacular, a bloody war has been waged between lions and hyenas in the lowlands of East Hararghe. According to media reports, the predators started fighting each other in the Gobele wilderness southeast of the town of Girawa in early April. What initially was thought to be a delayed April's Fool Joke has now enjoyed wide national and international media coverage. Providing updates on the territorial dispute in the animal kingdom, press and radio reports tried to ensure transparency and accountability on the development, while Ethiopian Television thrilled its viewers with breathtaking footage showing ferocious battling between the lions and hyenas. In its issue of April 20 the Ethiopian Herald said that after the situation "returned to normal", the latest death toll stood at 6 lions and 35 hyenas killed - the former obviously having won the upper-hand over the latter. According to a local villager, the lion-versus-hyena-war is an "old blood feud" going back 45 years, when a lion escaped from emperor Haile Selassie's palace menagerie in Harar and wreaked havoc on a hyena family. Ever since, the locals believe, the hyenas have waited for an opportunity to get even with the lions. (Ethiopian Herald, April 20; DPA, April 20; AFP April 19; Reuters, April 8; and other media reports.)
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Hornet/hoa0399.html
DG
reminds me of one of my favorite FR topics:
Eating our own...Time to make a new start in Free Republic.
7-26-04 | Bob J
Posted on 07/26/2004 7:41:11 PM PDT by Bob J
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1179142/posts
Thanks DG, interesting link.
Two Persons, Two Lions, 30 Hyenas Killed in Fight
December 11,1999
http://www.telecom.net.et/~walta/ennews/html/dec/ed111299/html/newsitem_7.html
DIRE DAWA, Dec. 11 (ENA) – Two persons, tow lions and 30 hyenas were reportedly killed during a fight between lions and hyenas last Sunday in Asibuli Woreda in Dire Dawa Administration.
The woreda council social affairs sector head, Abdi Gisale, told ENA yesterday that the fight between the two foes that took place in daybreak ended through the victory of the lions.
The defeated hyenas had eaten up a mother and child while fleeing the fight in a peasant locality known as Endaseblilo, he said.
Some six lions and 35 hyenas were killed last March during a one week fracas between the two wild animals that took place in Fedis Wroeda East Hararghe Zone of Oromia State.
Meanwhile, a hyena gorged two persons in Chinakson town, Jijiga Woreda of Somali State, police said.
Police told ENA on Thursday that the beast devoured the persons while they were asleep in their homes.
The devoured person, 12 and 35, had cried out for help, but to no avail, they said, adding, the local people killed the beast.
yeow .. what happened to the wonderful hyena laughter?
Where is the joy?
Must be those flea collars chafe in the heat of the savannah.
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