Self-Domestication in Bonobos and Other Animals
Self-domestication happens when the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs:
But why and how could natural selection tame the bonobo? One possible narrative begins about 2.5 million years ago, when the last common ancestor of bonobos and chimpanzees lived both north and south of the Zaire River, as did gorillas, their ecological rivals. A massive drought drove gorillas from the south, and they never returned. That last common ancestor suddenly had the southern jungles to themselves.
As a result, competition for resources wouldn’t be as fierce as before. Aggression, such a costly habit, wouldn’t have been so necessary. And whereas a resource-limited environment likely made female alliances rare, as they are in modern chimpanzees, reduced competition would have allowed females to become friends. No longer would males intimidate them and force them into sex. Once reproduction was no longer traumatic, they could afford to be fertile more often, which in turn reduced competition between males.
“If females don’t let you beat them up, why should a male bonobo try to be dominant over all the other males?” said Hare. “In male chimps, it’s very costly to be on top. Often in primate hierarchies, you don’t stay on top very long. Everyone is gunning for you. You’re getting in a lot of fights. If you don’t have to do that, it’s better for everybody.” Chimpanzees had been caught in what Hare called “this terrible cycle, and bonobos have been able to break this cycle.”
This is the sort of thing I write about in my new book. And with both bonobos and humans, there’s an obvious security problem: if almost everyone is non-aggressive, an aggressive minority can easily dominate. How does society prevent that from happening?
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Janne • February 17, 2012 7:33 AM
My guess: ostrasization. Once a large majority of individuals are nominally non-aggressive, then the rare individual that tries to use violence will be rapidly beat up, shunned and expelled from the group. Left to fend for themselves with no help from the group they will fare very poorly. Remember, just because you’re nice to others in your group it doesn’t mean you are not capable of serious violence if needed.
Or, in other words, being nice is an evolutionary stable strategy once it gets to dominate the pool of strategies.