Fission‐Fusion Dynamics

Aureli, Filippo; Schaffner, Colleen M.; Boesch, Christophe; Bearder, Simon K.; Call, Josep; Chapman, Colin A.; Connor, Richard C.; Fiore, Anthony Di; Dunbar, Robin; Henzi, S. Peter; Holekamp, Kay E.; Korstjens, Amanda H.; Layton, Robert; Lee, Phyllis C.; Lehmann, Julia; Manson, Joseph H.; Ramos‐Fernández, Gabriel; Strier, Karen B.; Schaik, Carel P. van

doi:10.1086/586708

Cited by 840 publications

(324 citation statements)

References 121 publications

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“…Taking these two cognitive tasks together, the increase in the number of potential bonding partners and the relative transience of distantly related bonded relationships compared with close kin relationships, we suggest that for chimpanzees, keeping track of others' less conspicuous bonded relationships is likely to require more frequent monitoring effort of their social environment than in species that predominantly rely on close kin bonds. The monitoring task is further complicated, however, by the fission -fusion nature of the chimpanzee's social structure, where not everybody can be monitored all the time [44,56].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence that triadic interventions can be delayed over time implies that social events that happen hours apart, and even involving different individuals, may nonetheless be connected in an animals' mind. Whether this capacity has evolved in species where group members are not always visible to each other, such as for animals living in fission-fusion social groups [44,56], or is more widespread, remains to be tested. Nonetheless, these results have considerable implications when examining animal behaviour and social cognition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although it may pay for an individual to avoid open aggression when a supporting partner of the competitor is in the vicinity, aggression may provide gains once the competitor's supporter has left. Strategies of delayed aggression, delayed support or revenge [43] appear particularly adaptive in animals with a fission-fusion social structure where subgroup composition changes regularly, such as in chimpanzees, spider monkeys, some cetaceans or hyenas [44]. In chimpanzees, where party composition changes, on average, every 20-30 min [45], power balances can change many times throughout the day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Triadic social interactions operate across time: a field experiment with wild chimpanzees

et al. 2014

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Social animals cooperate with bonding partners to outcompete others. Predicting a competitor's supporter is likely to be beneficial, regardless of whether the supporting relationship is stable or transient, or whether the support happens immediately or later. Although humans make such predictions frequently, it is unclear to what extent animals have the cognitive abilities to recognize others' transient bond partners and to predict others' coalitions that extend beyond the immediate present. We conducted playback experiments with wild chimpanzees to test this. About 2 h after fighting, subjects heard recordings of aggressive barks of a bystander, who was or was not a bond partner of the former opponent. Subjects looked longer and moved away more often from barks of the former opponents' bond partners than non-bond partners. In an additional experiment, subjects moved away more from barks than socially benign calls of the same bond partner. These effects were present despite differences in genetic relatedness and considerable time delays between the two events. Chimpanzees, it appears, integrate memories of social interactions from different sources to make inferences about current interactions. This ability is crucial for connecting triadic social interactions across time, a requirement for predicting aggressive support even after a time delay.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Triadic social interactions operate across time: a field experiment with wild chimpanzees

et al. 2014

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“…Of central importance in a diachronic frame are social processes of group fission and fusion (Aureli et al 2008), migration (Manning 2005), and sociopolitical relations through history (Smith 1776;Marx & Engels 1947;Runciman 2009). The timescales of interest in a diachronic frame are often stated in terms of years, decades, and centuries.…”

Section: Diachronic (Social/cultural History)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural causes of language: Frames, biases, and cultural transmission

Enfield¹

2014

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No scientific work proceeds without conceptual foundations. In language science, our concepts about language determine our assumptions, direct our attention, and guide our hypotheses and our reasoning. Only with clarity about conceptual foundations can we pose coherent research questions, design critical experiments, and collect crucial data. This series publishes short and accessible books that explore well-defined topics in the conceptual foundations of language science. The series provides a venue for conceptual arguments and explorations that do not require the traditional booklength treatment, yet that demand more space than a typical journal article allows.In this series: 1. N. J. Enfield. Natural causes of language.

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“…However, much less is known about how mothers influence infant social opportunities in species that live in fission-fusion social groups. Fission-fusion species, particularly those that have high fission-fusion dynamics such as humans and chimpanzees (26), are an excellent paradigm in which to consider individual differences in infant social exposure, as subgroup size and composition varies over time. This dynamic social system allows flexibility in the amount of social exposure that infants experience.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Early social exposure in wild chimpanzees: Mothers with sons are more gregarious than mothers with daughters

Murray

Lonsdorf

Stanton

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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In many mammals, early social experience is critical to developing species-appropriate adult behaviors. Although mother-infant interactions play an undeniably significant role in social development, other individuals in the social milieu may also influence infant outcomes. Additionally, the social skills necessary for adult success may differ between the sexes. In chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), adult males are more gregarious than females and rely on a suite of competitive and cooperative relationships to obtain access to females. In fission-fusion species, including humans and chimpanzees, subgroup composition is labile and individuals can vary the number of individuals with whom they associate. Thus, mothers in these species have a variety of social options. In this study, we investigated whether wild chimpanzee maternal subgrouping patterns differed based on infant sex. Our results show that mothers of sons were more gregarious than mothers of daughters; differences were especially pronounced during the first 6 mo of life, when infant behavior is unlikely to influence maternal subgrouping. Furthermore, mothers with sons spent significantly more time in parties containing males during the first 6 mo. These early differences foreshadow the well-documented sex differences in adult social behavior, and maternal gregariousness may provide sons with important observational learning experiences and social exposure early in life. The presence of these patterns in chimpanzees raises questions concerning the evolutionary history of differential social exposure and its role in shaping sex-typical behavior in humans.infant socialization | maternal behavior | chimpanzees | fission-fusion species E arly socialization is critical to developing social competency later in life. In mammals, mothers have enormous influence on their offspring's early social experience, with implications for adult social behavior. In humans, the relative contribution of parental and others' social influence on the development of sextypical behavior receives considerable attention and is often debated (1-4). Comparative research provides insight into the origins and development of sex differences in the absence of human cultural sex socialization. Decades of research in rodent and primate models have demonstrated that social deprivation curtails the development of species-appropriate behaviors (5-8) and cognition (9, 10). Primate mothers are critical for the normal social development of their infants (11-13), with classic studies demonstrating that maternal deprivation is associated with intense anxiety (14), inappropriate aggression (15), and an inability to form social relationships (16). The mother-infant relationship is therefore critical to proper social development; however, research also demonstrates the importance of the larger social milieu (17)(18)(19)(20). For example, a recent study in mice found that early interactions with mothers and peers independently shape adult behavior (21). Likewise, some negative impacts of maternal deprivati...

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Fission‐Fusion Dynamics

Cited by 840 publications

References 121 publications

Triadic social interactions operate across time: a field experiment with wild chimpanzees

Triadic social interactions operate across time: a field experiment with wild chimpanzees

Natural causes of language: Frames, biases, and cultural transmission

Early social exposure in wild chimpanzees: Mothers with sons are more gregarious than mothers with daughters

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