Effects of residence, aggressive experience and intruder familiarity on attack shown by male mice

Two groups of 12 mature male Swiss Morini strain mice were matched for aggressiveness on the basis of their response to anosmic docile male intruders after 24 h individual housing in a large defensible cage. One group was subsequently individually housed without disturbance for a further 12 days whereas the second group was exposed to a new anosmic intruder every 3 days over this same period. All mice were subsequently retested against anosmic intruders for a 10 min period. Animals which had had the opportunity to fight repeatedly showed more attack than individuals lacking such experience. A second experiment contrasted the responses of dominant isolates to the same or a different anosmic intruder, 10 min after a successful attack. Familiar intruders were attacked less vigorously than unfamiliar mice. It seems likely that the defeated mouse becomes less potent as a stimulus eliciting attack as the resident becomes habituated to it. Conversely, unfamiliar intruders evoke aggressive reactions by residents despite the prolonged fights they had had before final testing. These experiments provide little support for the appetence view of aggression in mice (i.e. the view that aggressiveness is augmented by depriving the animal of the opportunity to fight) or the view that this phenomenon is simply a consequence of "social deprivation".