I read this fascinating history in a book of Robert Sapolsky (“The trouble with testosterone” 1998. Touchstone, New York) and I have not wanted to allow sharing it here. The history has to do with a species of primate slightly less well-known than our nearby relatives (chimpanzee, gorilla, organgután), the baboon or papión sacred (Papio anubis). The baboons are monkeys of good size that inhabit in wide area of savanna and tropical forest in Africa. They are omnivorous opportunists capable of making use of numerous sources of food, such as fruits, roots, tubers, and of seeds; also they are capable of hunting small preys (occasionally, an antelope baby falls down in his hands). It is anticipated that they obtain approximately a third of the food of the hunting.
The baboons present a notable difference between the sexes. The males are approximately the double of big that the females. Another difference, less apparent but not less important, is the fact of the females they remain all his life in the group where they are born, while the males are transferred to other on having come to the "adolescence". In technical terms, the baboons are matrilocales. This situation (or the inverse one, the females leave the group) is current between the primates. Apparently one of the sexes has to emigrate to avoid the inbreeding. For example, between the gorillas, the male young people is expelled by the domineering male as soon as they give the first sample of sexual ripeness. Nevertheless, between the baboons the process is, somehow, “a volunteer“. On having come at certain age, the young baboons experience an irresistible fascination for other groups of baboons and a good day they leave.
The transference between groups is a particularly delicate period in the life of any male of baboon. They go away, but the new group can take certain time in receiving them and an alone baboon in the savanna is an easy prey. It is known that the mortality during this period increases enormously. Once accepted, the young baboon is in the rock bottom of the social scale. From there it will begin establishing relations, giving pokes (bites) and little by little climbing in his baboon career, what means to compete for status to dog's face, seven days a week. On the other hand, the females inherit straight the status of his mothers and this one is not modified usually, so that they do not turn out to be immersed in this crazy career for climbing and usually establish friendly relations they are other individuals. Between the males, the friendship is an unattainable luxury given the intense rivalry. The baboons male do not have friendly, like very much temporary Allied Forces.
Curiously, the investigators who have studied to this species observed that with enough frequency there take place other transferences of group in which the animal that goes away is a male of advanced age. This turned out to be surprising at first. If the process is dangerous for a young individual, it it is much more for one old. And the future that does not wait for him either is very pleasing: why was going to want a male to begin again when the forces begin him failing?
The answer seems to be in one of the darkest aspects of the nature babuina. It is known that in the social hierarchy of these animals, the interactions take place preferably between individuals of similar status. The male alpha will watch carefully to the number two to prevent from supplanting him, and two it will be careful with what it makes three, and this way successively. Nevertheless, in some cases it was seen that the domineering males had an unexpected number of interactions with individuals of low status. In these cases, the individual of low status was invariably an old male who had occupied years behind a high position in the hierarchy. And the word “interactions“ is an euphemism to say that the domineering males were making the life literally impossible to him. Since it could be waited, the perpetrators of this torture had suffered in his meats the domination of the old male when they were young, and now they were spending invoice to him. If you are a baboon, the savanna is not a country for old men. And so, the question of why do the old men go away turns out to be easy to answer. In another group the things will not go too much good but at least they will be anonymous individuals and they will leave them (relatively in peace). Approximately 50 % of the males ends up by emigrating.
But the most interesting thing comes now. The etóloga Bárbara Smuts thought that between the males who were not emigrating on having aged, some of them had supported a conduct quite different from the prototype of ambitious baboon. These individuals had established years behind friendly relations with other individuals, invariably females. The term “friendship“ can look like an anthropomorphism applied to these primates, but it is defined definitely in terms of the time that two individuals occupy in be delousing mutually, as well as in the mutual help in conflicts with other members or opposite to predators. Even more, these wise baboons had retired it was doing time (or at least, diminished) his emulation for climbing in the hierarchy and this attitude yields his fruits in the old age. The wise baboons are protected from the harassment of the domineering males by his "friends" and by his "reputation" of slightly domineering individuals. There is not doubt that this strategy is beneficial, at individual level, for that they practise it. What is not clear is if it turns out to be beneficial in reproductive terms.
Is there anything in this history that could be applied to our species? Apparently, this way it is. Of completely independent form, the psychologists have studied the differences between sexes with regard to which there is it names in English successful aging. Teresa Seeman and his companions of the University of yale have showed that men and women differ drastically in the quality and number of friendly relations that they support when they come at an advanced age. And this factor seems to be determinant: the symmetrical and reciprocal friendly relations suppose a considerable psychological protection. These results are concordant with many other studies that demonstrate that the women have major capacity (and major tendency) to establish friendly relations and to communicate.
Often this type of studies is misinterpreted. It is very possible that there are innate differences of behavior between men and women (as between baboons and babuinas) but that they are innate it does not mean that they could not change. It means that it will be to work more to change them. Just as the wise baboons, the ambitious human beings have the option to invest more time and I struggle in supporting friendly relations and less in advancing in his careers, to be able to gather the fruits further on.
What these distant cousins are saying to us is that it is worth having a pension plan in the affective area.
Sapolsky, R. (1996) American Journal of Primatology. 39:149-157.
Seeman, T. et to. (1994). Annals of Behavioral Medicine 16:95-.
Smuts, B. (1985) “Sex and friendship in Baboons” Aldine Pub., New York.