Comparative rates of violence in chimpanzees and humans
Abstract
This paper tests the proposal that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and humans have similar rates of death from intraspecific aggression, whereas chimpanzees have higher rates of non-lethal physical attack (Boehm 1999, Hierarchy in the forest: the evolution of egalitarian behavior. Harvard University Press). First, we assembled data on lethal aggression from long-term studies of nine communities of chimpanzees living in five populations. We calculated rates of death from intraspecific aggression both within and between communities. Variation among communities in mortality rates from aggression was high, and rates of death from intercommunity and intracommunity aggression were not correlated. Estimates for average rates of lethal violence for chimpanzees proved to be similar to average rates for subsistence societies of hunter-gatherers and farmers. Second, we compared rates of non-lethal physical aggression for two populations of chimpanzees and one population of recently settled hunter-gatherers. Chimpanzees had rates of aggression between two and three orders of magnitude higher than humans. These preliminary data support Boehm's hypothesis.
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Chimpanzees have rates of death from intergroup aggression in the same order of magnitude as mobile hunter-gatherers.
“However chimpanzees have been found to have rates of death from intergroup aggression in the same order of magnitude as mobile hunter-gatherers (Wrangham et al., 2006).”
From Hypotheses for the Evolution of Reduced Reactive Aggression in the Context of Human Self-Domestication (2019) · cites this paper as Wrangham et al., 2006
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- Authors
- Wrangham, R. W., Wilson, M. L., & Muller, M. N.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Boston University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wrangham, Richard W.
- Venue
- Primates
- Published
- 2005-08-20
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 14-26
- ISSN
- 0032-8332 (ISSN-L)
- 1610-7365
- OpenAlex
- W2038202133
- Cited by
- 309
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 7.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Primates (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Violence, Religion, and Philosophy
- Keywords
- chimpanzees, intraspecific aggression, intergroup aggression, intergroup violence, hunter-gatherers, subsistence societies, human evolution, egalitarianism
- MeSH terms
- Aggression, Animals, Pan troglodytes, Female, Humans, Male, Mortality, Violence
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