Development of socio-emotional competence in bonobos

Abstract

Social and emotional skills are tightly interlinked in human development, and both are negatively impacted by disrupted social development. The same interplay between social and emotional skills, including expressions of empathy, has received scant attention in other primates however, despite the growing interest in caring, friendships, and the fitness benefits of social skills. Here we examine the development of socio-emotional competence in juvenile bonobos (Pan paniscus) at a sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, focusing on the interplay between various skills, including empathy-related responding. Most subjects were rehabilitated orphans, but some were born at the sanctuary and mother-reared there. We observed how juveniles with different rearing backgrounds responded to stressful events, both when the stress affected themselves (e.g., a lost fight) or others (e.g., witnessing the distress of others). The main dependent variable was the consolation of distressed parties by means of calming body contact. As in children, consolation was predicted by overall social competence and effective emotion regulation, as reflected in the speed of recovery from self-distress and behavioral measures of anxiety. Juveniles more effective at self-regulation were more likely to console others in distress, and such behavior was more typical of mother-reared juveniles than orphans. These results highlight the interplay between the development of social and emotional skills in our ape relatives and the importance of the mother-offspring bond in shaping socio-emotional competence.social deprivation | sympathetic concern | emotional control | personal distress S ocio-emotional competence encompasses an array of skills, such as successfully forming and maintaining social relationships, behaving appropriately in social situations, being sensitive to the emotions of others, and effectively managing one's own emotions (1). Emotion regulation (ER) is an essential part of socio-emotional competence and is defined as the process of modifying, inhibiting, evaluating, and monitoring internal states and reactions to enable an individual to adaptively respond to arousing situations so as to achieve individual goals (1, 2). Throughout development, social and emotional skills are tightly interconnected and "people who are unable to modulate the intensity and duration of their internal emotional responses and emotionally driven behavior are likely to be physiologically overaroused and to behave in ways that do not foster constructive social interactions" (3).Studies of child development show that effectively managing one's own emotions allows for greater empathy with others, including caring responses known as sympathetic concern (4-6).

Helping Another in Distress: Lessons from Rats

“…The predominant reason for not helping appears to be an excessive amount of personal anxiety. Bonobo apes who show more anxiety, measured by how much they scratch themselves, and who take longer to recover from a stressful event show less consolation behavior toward other bonobos in distress (Clay & de Waal, 2013 ). This fi nding dovetails beautifully with human literature suggesting that to use empathy for helping or caring, an individual must overcome personal distress, a process typically termed self-or down-regulation.…”

Bonobos Show Limited Social Tolerance in a Group Setting: A Comparison with Chimpanzees and a Test of the Relational Model

“…Similarly, the bonobos' rearing history may also explain differences in tolerance between studies. Although Wobber and Hare [2011] did not find differences in cognitive performance between orphaned and mother-reared apes, Clay and de Waal [2013] suggested that mother-reared bonobos show better emotional regulation and social competence. It is possible that these behavioural differences extend towards food-related strategies, including mechanisms to avoid food competition.…”

Complex sources of variance in female dominance rank in a nepotistic society

“…Note, however, that female primates are much more likely to suffer from a lack of maternal support than to benefit from it, not only in terms of rank outcomes (Fig. 2), but also in terms of behavioural and social development (Botero et al, 2013; Clay & de Waal, 2013; Missakian et al, 1972), as well as mortality risk (Hasegawa & Hiraiwa, 1980). …”