Emotional climate change in a baboon troop
In 1978, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky began spending summers each year in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya studying and “virtually living with” a troop of free-ranging savanna baboons. He named them the Forest Troop. His early research focused on the relationship between social rank and stress-related disease in the males. He found striking differences between high-ranking and low-ranking males in their stress hormone levels, their overall health, and quality of life.
In the early 1980s, a neighboring baboon troop (“Garbage Dump Troop”) encountered a new and plentiful source of food near its territory: the garbage pit of a tourist lodge. Garbage Dump members foraged almost exclusively there. By 1982, the more aggressive males of Forest Troop males began to infiltrate this territory and compete with Garbage Dump Troop for access to the garbage. In 1983, there was an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis originating from infected meat in the dump. Between 1983 and 1986, most of the members of Garbage Dump Troop, and all of the Forest Troop males who had eaten the tainted food, died. Forest Troop lost 46% of its adult males. Only the less aggressive males remained and the composition of the troop changed. There were fewer adult males, and the female:male ratio more than doubled. By 1986, “troop behavior had changed markedly, because only less aggressive males had survived.” (Sapolsky and Share, 2004, p. 0534)
After the deaths, Sapolsky and Share stopped observing Forest Troop and worked with a different baboon troop. They resumed study of Forest Troop from 1993-96. At that point, because males migrate after puberty, no adult males from the 1983-86 period remained in Forest Troop. The new cohort of males who entered the troop after 1986 continued to exhibit the distinctive behaviors that emerged after the loss of the most aggressive males. Low-ranking males were better tolerated and less subject to harassment and/or displacement by high-ranking males. In comparison with the other troop (named Tarek troop) being studied, Forest Troop males directed less aggression toward females, did more social grooming, and spent more time in close proximity with females and juveniles. Male-male conflict was more often between closely-ranked males in contrast with the more typical male baboon bullying of low-ranking males. Testing the stress hormone levels in the adult males, Sapolsky found that the subordinate males in Forest Troop “were spared the stress-related physiology of subordination seen in other troops.” (Sapolsky and Share, 2004, p. 0536)
Writing in 2014, Sapolsky reports that this unique, pacific culture persists in Forest Troop, now twenty years after the event that changed the social milieu. Describing the typical savanna baboon society as “a textbook example of life in an aggressive, highly stratified, male-dominated society,” Sapolsky goes on to say: “Yet within a few years, members of the species demonstrated enough behavioral plasticity to transform a society of theirs into a baboon utopia.” (2014)
Forest Troop has continued to have twice as many females as males, but, lest one suspect that the skewed sex ratio explains the taming of the males, Sapolsky states that other troops with similar ratios have not exhibited a comparable amicable atmosphere. “What was key was not just the predominance of females, but the type of male that remained.” Defining culture as consisting of “local behavioral variations…that last beyond the time of their originators,” Sapolsky writes: “Forest Troop’s low aggression/high affiliation society constitutes nothing less than a multigenerational benign culture.”
I think this is a compelling example of social change from which we can learn. Bringing the lens of Bowen theory to it, I have some thoughts and would welcome the thoughts of Festwg members.
What changed in Forest Troop was not just the kind of male behavior it encouraged, but a total change in the emotional system and emotional climate. With the loss of its most aggressive members, Forest Troop changed as a whole with changes in the behavior of all members. The level of chronic anxiety was reduced; more relaxed and less vigilant, members associated more freely with one another. The individuality/togetherness balance shifted to create a new norm. There was less togetherness pressure; more room for individuality. Aggressive behavior did not stop but it was managed differently. I think there may have been a new kind of leadership, less leadership by dominance and more by example. Somehow, newly entering males picked up signals from troop members about the norms of the group and learned to regulate their behavior differently than they had learned in their natal troops. It would be interesting to know more about how incoming males selected, or were selected by, Forest Troop.
Thank you for bringing more attention to this surprising phenomenon. Good choice of subject! And good writing. My understanding is that males who continued eventually were not genetically different (though that may have been the case initially), but were regulated by a different group culture.
The level of differentiation of females, including female alpha members of baboons and chimps, may be an important factor in a group.
HI Stephanie:
This is a beautiful example of the influence of environment on behavior and the influence of one generation on another. What are all the factors that go into that? It makes me think of countries with an aggressive leader who is ousted, only to be replaced by another aggressive leader, or a leader who becomes aggressive over time. How the environment fuels aggression is a different focus than what to do with aggressive leaders. We tend to want to get rid of them…..sounds like poisoned meat is just as effective as smart weaponry.
I would be interested in thinking about the factors that sustain cooperation as well as aggression.
I always appreciate the opportunity to hear your research and thinking. Thanks so much.
Stephanie,
Have you read the book Ghengis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World? By a respected historian Jack Weatherford at Macalaster College in St. Paul. MN. It is a really good read and was on the NY Times best seller list. Changed my view of the world’s history. GK defied tradition and built his organization by promoting others based on merit rather than blood line. Then when he conquered a place, he’d kill off all the leaders and then would open up a world of opportunity for everyone else – while being curious and learning everything he could from them. His legacy lasted centuries in the organization of Eurasia. His principles faltered somewhat when dividing his empire among his sons otherwise we might be writing here in the Mongol language instead of English.
I’m thinking GK was like the poison that took out the (greedy) dominants among the baboons – which he replaced. I think if you are going to go to war, to win it you need to be willing to be an occupier like GK or the USA after WWII. You maybe don’t need to kill the dominants but you do need to undercut their dominance.
The example of the transformation of culture in the baboons you are thinking about and how to account for it, is completely fascinating. Just to know that it happened and is sustained with future generations and the entry of new males into the troop is profound. A really great and important example to study.
In Sapolsky’s book A Primates’ Memoir, he writes about Saul, an alpha dominant male at one point during the baboon troops mean and nasty epoch. Sapolsky describes Saul as a unique animal who brooks no insult and yet doesn’t pursue togetherness or the inside position with others. At the time of that book, Saul was the only leader Sapolsky had observed who wasn’t lording it over the others being mean and nasty, not even to the females like the other alphas. It was a beneficent emotional climate underneath him relative to the reign of other dominants.
I think you are onto something about leading through dominance vs by example — I think the differentiation concept may apply.
Laura,
I will follow up with the Weatherford book. I had no idea Ghengis Kahn had such a creative approach to leadership albeit killing some people off.
I will also follow up on Sapolsky’s book which I have on my shelf but haven’t yet opened. In my last entry to Festwg, I wrote about the hen experiment which led to the conclusion that top-producing hens put together turned into killer groups while groups of more docile hens were far more productive (of eggs). I am gathering animal examples on the relationship of aggression and group functioning, and would like to find more human examples, of which there are many. The application of these ideas to human societies are stunning. Your point on the USA after WWII also opens the door to more application.
I hadn’t known about this later Sapolsky work. You can make yourself crazy thinking of the many configurations of variables that could produce these results. Provocative and fun.