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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 23, 2026

Author Spotlight: Understanding Adolescent Social Adversity Effects on Neurodevelopment in Mice

Author Spotlight: Understanding Adolescent Social Adversity Effects on Neurodevelopment in Mice

Published on: March 15, 2024

Stress behaviours buffer macaques from aggression.

Jamie Whitehouse¹, Jérôme Micheletta², Bridget M Waller²

¹Department of Psychology, Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK. jamie.whitehouse@port.ac.uk.

Scientific Reports

|September 13, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Primates scratch when stressed. This scratching behavior signals stress to others, potentially reducing aggression and promoting social cohesion in primate groups.

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Area of Science:

Primate behavior
Social cognition
Ethology

Background:

Primates, including humans, exhibit scratching as a response to stress.
Previous research viewed stress-induced scratching primarily as a physiological byproduct with regulatory functions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the potential social function of stress-induced scratching in primates.
To test the hypothesis that scratching serves as a signal of an individual's stress state to conspecifics.

Main Methods:

Observational study of free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).
Measurement of scratching behavior in relation to social stress indicators.
Analysis of social interactions following scratching events.

Main Results:

Scratching likelihood increased during periods of heightened social stress, such as proximity to dominant individuals or non-familiar macaques.
Following scratching, subsequent social interactions were less aggressive and more affiliative.

Conclusions:

Stress-induced scratching in primates may serve an adaptive social function by signaling stress levels.
This signaling can reduce aggression and promote social cohesion, potentially benefiting both the signaler and recipients.
The ability to recognize stress in others through such behaviors may contribute to the evolution of social cognition, including empathy.