Aug 25 2009
Pleasing the Mighty
“Thus, in the Old World species which have been studied under natural conditions, there appears to be a correlation between the amount of allogrooming behavior and the steepness of the dominance slope within the troop.”
- John Sparks (11)“An adult male tends to groom higher-ranking or older male partners more than he is groomed by them.”
- Jane Goodall (12)
Pleasing those individuals more mighty than yourself is a means of staying on their proverbial good side. How do you please the relatively mighty? First, by refraining from behavior that angers or threatens them. By staying out of their hair. (Technically called “negative reinforcement” — the removal of unpleasant stimuli being reinforcing, which is distinctly different from punishment.) Second, by acknowledging their greater status, in gesture, deed, sound, or even word. By bowing down to them.
A class of primate behavior that belongs in the second category is that of grooming. Numerous studies have shown that gentle touch is pleasing to the touchee, likely causing the release of “pleasure chemicals” (oxytocin a likely culprit). Does hearing complimentary word spoken your way bear the same neurochemical impact as a pat on the back? Perhaps.
Supernatural and religious ideation frequently depicts an overt hierarchical structure. Above is the abode of the mighty. Be bad and you go down . Those closer to “up” are fathers, a step below them, brothers. Titles convey the rarified position of important individuals.
Consider the etymology of three religious terms: Pope, priest and gentile. (All three from the Online Etymology Dictionary.) Notice the implied status and exclusivity for each.
Pope -
O.E. papa, from M.L. papa “bishop, pope” (in classical L., “tutor”), from Gk. papas “patriarch, bishop,” originally “father.”
Priest -
O.E. preost, shortened from the older Gmc. form represented by O.S., O.H.G. prestar, O.Fris. prestere, from V.L. *prester “priest,” from L.L. presbyter “presbyter, elder,” from Gk. presbyteros (see Presbyterian).
Gentile -
1160, from L.L. gentilis “foreign, heathen, pagan,” from L. gentilis “person belonging to the same family, fellow countryman,” from gentilis (adj.) “of the same family or clan,” from gens (gen. gentis) “race, clan” (see gentle).
While there is but one father, there can be many elders. And as for gentiles, the are both common and “not of us,” at least for Jews, the in-group as they saw it and perhaps still see it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let us first take a look at primate grooming as it pertains to their hierarchical organization. Then we’ll segue to other important social elements of grooming. Finally we will transition from physical grooming to verbal praise. The latter two items will be addressed in separate, forthcoming installments.
John Sparks, a former research fellow from the London Zoo, has made these observations about primate grooming in general:
- Macaques and baboons and other species with robust dominance hierarchies engage in more allogrooming (grooming of others) than those with weaker or more loosely defined hierarchies. (14)
- The positive correlation between social grooming and prominent social hierarchies is paralleled by “dominance mounting” — the tendency for lower ranking individuals to “present” themselves in a sexually suggestive manner so as to placate the more dominant member, who may or may not cursorily and non-sexually mount the presenter. (15)
As a cursory, tangential rumination, I wonder: Is bowing among humans in any way a residual of this “presenting” instinct? By bowing to the more mighty, do we “tell” that individual we are more likely to bring him/her pleasure than strife? The forward-facing element, however, confounds the issue.
Moving “up” the primate kingdom, so to speak, we arrive at chimps and gorillas.
- Gorillas, too, have shown a positive correlation between social status and amount of grooming received.
- Finally, the relative rank of a chimpanzee has been determined in the field by the amount of grooming invited within relationship dyads, with the higher ranking inviting it far more often and the lower rarely refusing to comply.(16)
Nishida and Hosaka have corroborated this last finding with a twist, writing, “In the initiation of grooming, the general rule is for younger or lower-ranking males to initiate grooming with older, higher-ranking ones.” (17) So the lower ranking individuals may initiate, or offer, grooming, but not ask/invite to be groomed themselves.
Primates are an impressively plastic species. In fact, one chimpanzee troop has been known to engage in a different sort of grooming, described as “social scratching.” But as William McCrew relates, one element is consistent: “socially dominant individuals receive more back-scratching than do subordinates.” (18)
What about our kind? Is there any evidence of hierarchical grooming among humans? Stay tuned . . . .
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(11) Sparks, J., “Allogrooming in Primates: a Review,” in Morris, D. (ed.) Primate Ethology, Aldine, Chicago, 1967, p. 159
(12) Goodall, J. The Chimpanzees of the Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1986, p. 393
(13) www.etymonline.com/index.php
(14) Sparks, J., 1967, p. 159
(15) Sparks, J., 1967, p. 159
(16) Sparks, J., 1967, p. 161
(17) Nishida, T., and Hosaka, K., “Coalition strategies among adult male chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania” in McGrew, W. C. , Marchant, L. F. & Nishida, T., Great Ape Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1996, p. 126
(18) McCrew, W. C., The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reflections on Cultural Primatology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 136
