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"Chimpanzee violence is rare, but it can be extreme in its brutality." (New Scientist, 10 May 2014, p. 12)
What's fun, interesting, and motivating about writing essays for Psychology Today is that often readers get involved by posting comments that criticize, support, or extend some of the ideas about which others and I write. Some readers also send me personal emails about this and that and I appreciate the ones that are friendly and thought provoking even if they're critical of what I write. Often I get emails about other matters and I appreciate these as well.
Coincidences often abound. Soon after I read an essay by Colin Barras in New Scientist magazine called "Only known chimp war reveals how societies splinter" (it's now available online, and the print edition version was called "Secrets of the only known chimp war") I was asked to comment on how various media far too often represent nonhuman animals (animals) as warmongers, using their purported behavior to justify our own. For example, when there are horrific shootings or other reprehensible acts of violence, we often hear that the human(s) was behaving just like an animal. However, the facts show that violence among animals is very rare compared with other more positive (prosocial) behaviors. Mr. Barras's essay deserves a wide readership.
Other researchers and I have taken the position, based on available evidence, that these sorts of claims about widespread violence in animals are misrepresentations and distortions of what we really know about them and we shouldn't be blaming other animals for our violent and evil ways. My earlier essay was titled "Humanlike Violence Is Not Seen In Other Animals" and to be more accurate it should have been called "Humanlike Violence Is Extremely Rare In Other Animals." In this piece I noted what world renowned primatologist Jane Goodall wrote about violence in wild chimpanzees in her book The Chimpanzees of Gombe: " . . . it is easy to get the impression that chimpanzees are more aggressive than they really are. In actuality, peaceful interactions are far more frequent than aggressive ones; mild threatening gestures are more common than vigorous ones; threats per se occur much more often than fights; and serious, wounding fights are very rare compared to brief, relatively mild ones." (p. 357, my emphasis) Dr. Goodall also noted in 2013 that chimpanzees "have a dark side just as we do. We have less excuse, because we can deliberate, so I believe only we are capable of true calculated evil."
And, along these lines, Robert Sussman, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his colleagues Paul Garber and Jim Cheverud, reported in 2005 in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology that for many nonhuman primates, more than 90 percent of their social interactions are affiliative rather than competitive or divisive (see also for an update on what we're learning about cooperation in other animals).
The New Scientist essay, in which the only known chimpanzee war that occurred in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park (during the early years of Jane Goodall's and her colleague's long term studies) is re-examined in great detail using social network analysis by Joseph Feldblum and his colleagues at Duke University, supports this conclusion. It also notes similarities in how human societies work. It's a very interesting and important read about the social dynamics of what happened at Gombe, namely the death of a male named Leakey that caused a split in northern and southern groups of chimpanzees and the emergence of Humphrey, a weak alpha male. It also highlights the importance of long-term research on identified individuals. And, because it's the only known chimpanzee war, a point made by Dr. Feldblum, claiming we inherited our widespread destructive behavior from "them" is not a credible conclusion.
So, do animals fight with one another? Yes. Do they routinely engage in cruel, violent, warlike behaviors? No. They're extremely rare. Thus, we can learn a lot about who we really are from paying attention to what we are learning about the social behavior of other animals, and harness our own innate goodness to make the world a better place for all beings.
As renowned primatologist Frans de Waal reminds us, nature offers many lessons for a kinder society (see also). Blood shouldn't sell. We need to pay attention to what we know and push aside misleading sensationalist media that misrepresents us and other animals.
Note 1: There still is room for improvement in how animals are represented in media. In a recent New York Times essay called "Stronger Brains, Weaker Bodies" Carl Zimmer writes: "The evolution of our enormous prefrontal cortex also had a profound effect on our species. We use it for many of the tasks that only humans can perform, such as reflecting on ourselves, thinking about what others are thinking and planning for the future." We are unique mammals, but not in the ways Mr. Zimmer suggests.
Note 2: A few people have written me about the good/kind side of human nature and they are right: I wrote this in my earlier essay: We're also learning a lot about moral behavior in very young children. For example, researchers who study child's play, like Ernst Fehr, of the University of Zurich, and Anthony D. Pellegrini, of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, have discovered that basic rules of fairness guide play, and that egalitarian instincts emerge very early in childhood. Indeed, while playing, children learn, as do other young animals, that there are right and wrong ways to play, and that transgressions of fairness have social consequences, like being ostracized. Research has also shown that six-month-old babies know right from wrong. And, of course, there's University of California psychologist Dacher Keltner's wonderful book called Born To Be Good in which he shows that positive emotions lie at the core of human nature just as they do for other animals.
Marc Bekoff's latest books are Jasper's story: Saving moon bears (with Jill Robinson; see also), Ignoring nature no more: The case for compassionate conservation (see also), and Why dogs hump and bees get depressed (see also). Rewilding our hearts: Building pathways of compassion and coexistence will be published fall 2014. (marcbekoff.com; @MarcBekoff
