Tolerance in intergroup encounters: Prevalence and plasticity in the non-human great apes and humans
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Anthropology, Ecology, Evolutionary Studies
- Keywords
- Tolerance, Intergroup encounters, Intergroup contact, Contest competition, Hominoids, Primate behavior
- Copyright
- © 2018 Pisor et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Tolerance in intergroup encounters: Prevalence and plasticity in the non-human great apes and humans. PeerJ Preprints 6:e3400v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3400v2
Abstract
Primate individuals use a variety of strategies in intergroup encounters, from aggression to tolerance; however, recent focus on the evolution of either warfare or peace has come at the cost of characterizing this variability. Drawing on insights from across the Primate order, with special focus on our closest living relatives, we identify candidate selection pressures that may favor tolerance toward extra-group individuals. While similar ecological and social factors appear to explain some of the plasticity in behavior toward extra-group individuals in both humans and the non-human great apes, the prevalence of extra-group tolerance in humans requires additional explanation. Evidence suggests that the human foraging niche often required reliance on resources not locally available, favoring higher levels of tolerance in humans that are reinforced by cultural institutions. We identify data collection strategies and social science literatures that can help us better characterize the role of extra-group relationships in human sociality.
Author Comment
Per reviewer comments, we have made substantial changes to the content of this manuscript. The most substantial change we made was to shift the focus of our review, expanding the human section, contracting our emphasis on the non-ape primate literature, and incorporating non-human great ape examples throughout. Other substantial changes include an expanded discussion of the relevance of non-human primate patterns of intergroup behavior for interpreting human patterns; the addition of a discussion of the relationship between the economic defensibility of resources and territorial behavior in the introduction, providing an improved backdrop for the claims made in the review; a glossary of terms for quick reference; and a re-written discussion section with clearer take-home messages and additional recommended future directions. We have also removed Boxes 1 and 2, as we were able to incorporate their messages into the main text.