Bonobos protect and console friends and kin
Elisabetta Palagi1, Ivan Norscia
1Museo di Storia Naturale e del Territorio, Università di Pisa, Calci - Pisa, Italy ; Unità di Primatologia Cognitiva, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Roma, Italy.
Plos One
|November 14, 2013
Summary
Bonobos offer post-conflict comfort, with spontaneous affiliation reducing victim anxiety and aggression. This spontaneous consolation appears empathy-based, prioritizing close social bonds, similar to humans.
Area of Science:
- Primate behavior
- Social cognition
- Ethology
Background:
- Post-conflict third-party affiliation in bonobos serves various functions, including consolation.
- Hypotheses explaining this phenomenon include Self-Protection, Victim-Protection, Relationship-Repair, and Consolation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test hypotheses explaining post-conflict third-party affiliation in bonobos.
- Investigate factors influencing spontaneous and solicited third-party affiliation over 10 years.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 10 years of observational data on bonobo social interactions.
- Assessment of individual features (sex, rank, age), relationship quality (kinship, affiliation), and victim outcomes (protection, anxiety reduction).
Main Results:
- Both spontaneous and solicited affiliation reduced further aggression against the victim (Victim-Protection Hypothesis supported).
- Only spontaneous affiliation reduced victim anxiety, suggesting the gesture itself is calming.
- Spontaneous affiliation was influenced by the consoler-victim bond, not the consoler-aggressor relationship (Consolation Hypothesis supported).
Conclusions:
- Spontaneous third-party affiliation in bonobos functions as consolation.
- This consolation appears to be an empathy-based phenomenon, following an empathic gradient similar to humans.
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