Primates' Social Intelligence May Actually Reflect Fear and Servitude

iStockphoto/George Clerk

GreenTracker| The perceived social intelligence among primates’ grooming habits may be overstated, according to a new computer model of alleged rational behavior among primates. Professor and theoretical biologist Charlotte Hemelrijk says that many patterns of reconciliation and exchange surprisingly emerge simply from fear of losing a fight with another individual.

‘This shows that reconciliation and exchange behaviour are not necessarily conscious behaviour’, Hemelrijk — specialist in self-organization in social systems — states. ‘It’s simply a consequence of rank and of which primates are in the vicinity of the primate that wants to groom.’ The results of the research conducted by the group that worked with Hemelrijk on the computer model have appeared in late December in the journal PloS Computational Biology. via Science Daily