Quantifying empathy/apathy ratio, as applied to various aspects of behaviour in hamadryas baboon

We have seen, in recent Posts, that there is evidence for some empathy in various subtle details of the behaviour of the hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas). This is a species studied intensively by e.g. Hans Kummer and his various students, both in the field and in captivity.

However, the overwhelming trend is for apathy (in the sense of amorality, not in the sense of a lack of emotions).
 
Since it is too easy to stumble on words here, I will provisionally refer to this as the empathy/apathy ratio.
 
If it were true that baboons showed no morality at all, the empathy/apathy ratio would be zero for all behaviours. Instead it is likely to be some small number, e.g. 0.1, but VARIABLE ACCORDING TO THE BEHAVIOUR.

GROOMING
 
Let us start with the behaviour that the casual observer of baboons might find most apparently empathetic: grooming.

This is the most visible form of ostensible altruism in Old World monkeys. What the naive and anthropocentric observer thinks he/she sees is a bunch of happy, selfless monkeys caressing each other because they know how much the other likes this attention, and they are happy to give of themselves.
 
In fact, when one examines this in the case of the hamadryas baboon, things are not what they seem. However, the complexity and versatility so characteristic of primates mean that we have to pay attention to the details. Kummer discusses these details on e.g. pages 31-2 and 34 and 42. As another example, see http://theprancingpapio.blogspot.com.au/p/the-blog.html .
 
The hamadryas baboon grooms rather compulsively, partly stimulated by one morphological feature and one behavioural action.
 
The morphological feature is the cape, which is restricted not only to mature males but to the prime of life (being lost in old age).

Easily overlooked is that this cape is capable of piloerection, i.e. there is partial analogy with e.g. aardwolf or warthog in that the ‘mane’ can be made to look larger in fear. This does not seem to make much difference in mature males, because the cape is already stiff and voluminous. However, in subadult males there is noticeable ‘erection’ of the cape in fearful self-defence, at least instraspecifically (see Kummer page 43).

My point (and this is something possibly overlooked by Kummer) is that the magnificent cape of mature males, which his family ‘celebrates’ by a mesmerised kind of compulsive grooming, is in one sense a kind of exaggerated stimulus to fear in the first place. It is not just a male adornment but – in partial parallel to the canine teeth - an exaggeration of what was originally, at least in part, a sign of attack/aggression.

(The lack of a masculine cape in the chacma baboon (Papio ursinus) and yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) warrants further thought.)
 
The behavioural feature is a posture of reaching to the sky with one arm, as if to expose the flank as an invitation to groom. This posture, which may not occur in the chacma baboon, is adopted occasionally by both sexes in the hamadryas baboon. It is an action that requests ‘I would like to be groomed now’. Please note that this is not the same thing as the more empathetic ‘Please groom me and then I’ll groom you in return’.
 
What are the social rules of grooming according to sexism/ageism/classism? What gives away the real motivations behind grooming are the details of who grooms who how much, as well as the morphological stimulation involved.
 
I repeat a point made in a previous Post: grooming is not the same thing as ‘appropriate caressing’. Baboons are incapable of caressing each other, in the sense that we humans caress. The best they can do is to take an anti-parasite tactic, and shoehorn it into something resembling a kind act.
 
Females do groom each other, and the mature male does groom his wives (see page 49 of Kummer 1995). However, it is the mature male who receives most of the grooming, and this goes way beyond any possible need in terms of hygiene and anti-parasite treatment. As Kummer points out e.g. on page 55: among the wives within a family group, it is also the dominant wife that receives grooming from another female individual more than she gives grooming, i.e. she acts somewhat like a male in this way.
 
Juveniles are seemingly mesmerised by the male’s cape, but are usually too scared to approach him. If they dare to groom him at all, they do so tentatively and deferentially, with light one-finger touches to the tail. There is often a pronounced displacement action here, in which the fearful individual instead sweeps its hand, palm held parallel to the ground, in a semi-circular motion just above the ground, instead of daring to touch the father figure.
 
So what emerges is that the male hamadryas baboon does reciprocate in grooming. There is a quid pro quo in the sense that his wives often groom him in order to feel secure around him, while he at other times grooms the less secure among them as a kind of rudimentary courtship (see page 49 of Kummer 1995).

However, it is also obvious that grooming of the male can be so inhibited by fear that a strong visual stimulus is needed to overcome this. For a juvenile to groom the male means using only one finger at a time, in contrast to the brisk, both-hands swiping of the established wife. Both the tentative one-finger approach and the overly brisk approach, although ostensible opposites, show the fear involved.

In the hamadryas baboon, grooming is obviously a tactic of appeasement, as much as a selfless act of giving pleasure to another. The wives seem to groom out of compulsion and fear, as much as out of love. Kummer notes that the more anxious a given female individual is at the time, the more briskly she initially grooms her husband, as if to placate him as quickly as possible.  Wives groom their husband partly because they can at least relax while they are grooming him, safe from any abuse or punishment during this preoccupying activity.
 
In the hamadryas baboon, the probability of one individual grooming another can be analysed according to the four levels of congregation.

The troop is the largest congregation. However, belonging to the same troop per se is NEVER a basis for grooming. Nor is belonging to the same band. Within the clan, grooming is allowed. “Ninety-one percent of the time that males spend on grooming other males is devoted to members of their own clan. The interactions of females outside their families are impeded by their males’ intolerance, but even females occasionally groom followers or females of another family in the clan” (Kummer 1995, page 282).

However, it is within the family that members spend 98% of their grooming time. Within the family, it is the ‘strongest’ that receive the most grooming – in contrast with an imaginary empathetic society in which it is the weak and sick that are most comforted.
 
As Kummer summarises on page 292, in the gelada (Theropithecus gelada) it is also true that “each of them tries to groom partners of the highest possible rank who would probably make the most useful allies. But each member also prevents those below her from grooming those above, as though it were necessary to go through official channels. The end result was that each family member mainly groomed the member next higher in rank...The lowest-ranking female, at the bottom of the family chain, hardly ever manages to groom the male.” Unlike the hamadryas, the mature male gelada does not court low-ranking females by grooming them.
 
Do readers see how there is much more to grooming in baboons than meets the eye?
 
I have never seen anyone compare the ‘mane’ of the hamadryas baboon (or gelada) with that of the lion. However, the comparison becomes obvious as soon as one ventures into lateral thinking. Here I will use ‘cape’ and ‘mane’ interchangeably.
 
We have seen that grooming behaviour is stimulated by the specialised cape of the hamadryas baboon, the gelada and (to a minor degree) the anubis baboon.  The cape is a strong element of sexual dimorphism, and a feature of the pelage that male baboons lose once deposed, later in life.

The cape of mature males of the hamadryas baboon is partly analogous with the mane of mature males of the lion. However, at least one of its functions is different. This is because there is no grooming behaviour in the lion that is lavished on the male (the lion grooms mainly by licking, and this is directed towards juveniles more than the male, as far as I know). The lion can have a magnificent mane but hardly DOES anything with it.
 
In both baboons (sensu lato, including to some extent the anubis baboon) and the lion, there is a masculine ‘mane’ that is a major secondary sexual feature - making males more attractive to females, while at the same time intimidating rival males. We humans understand this kind of thing because our males are more or less bearded.

Nobody needs an explanation of why a bearded bikie or viking looks macho; this is archetypal. However, the social behaviour around the mane is so much more complex in baboons than in the lion.

In the lion, the mane is visually stimulating, but relatively simple. In baboons such as the hamadryas baboon, there are several confusing axes of meaning w.r.t. the mane as a stimulus. This forms a kind of parallel to the other ‘overdone’ visual stimuli of baboons, such as the terrible canines of the male and the bizarre oestrus swellings of the female.

Primates have converted secondary sexual features to a new level of social complexity and versatility. That much is not original, but the balance of empathy/apathy behind this is an original line of thinking.
 
Although the masculine canines remain overwhelmingly fear-inducing, and the oestrus swellings remain overwhelmingly attractive (erotic), the mane is ambivalent. Its overall balance can only be deduced by careful weighing up of both sides.

On one hand, the mane of the hamadryas baboon is an intimidating reminder of the dominance of mature males, exaggerating their size and thus the threat they pose. On the other hand, it must reassure the family that they are protected against predators.

Intraspecifically, the mane repels juveniles while attracting adult females, the basic unkindness of the male never being far from anyone’s mind. There are protocols involved in grooming, and so grooming behaviour has gone WAY beyond just hygiene and parasite-control, into a kind of social intrigue thwtnreally shows how much more cognitive baboons are than the lion.

The mane of the lion is a magnificent item of ‘clothing’, but its function is remarkably simple beyond the complication that it can both repel and attract, intraspecifically.

The mane of the hamadryas baboon is a magnificent item of ‘clothing’, and shares the ambivalence of the lion’s mane. However, the difference is that there is so much more behavioural complexity and versatility involved in the case of the baboon.
 
So where does the balance lie, overall, in grooming w.r.t. the distinction between empathy and apathy?
 
If baboons were essentially empathetic animals, all this complexity and versatility of form and function would be unnecessary. There would just be mutual consideration appropriate to the circumstance, and interactions would be loving and caring. There would not even be a need for a cape to impress predators with, because all adults, male and female, would have teeth well-developed enough to provide collective defence based on altruism. Grooming would be concentrated on those that ‘need’ it most, i.e. the young, old, and ill. This is far from the truth.
 
It is difficult to discern cause and effect for the mane w.r.t. predation. However, I do not see the mane as basically an interspecific adaptation; I see it as an intraspecific adaptation that has a corollary function interspecifically.
 
My main conclusion is that grooming in baboons, although it certainly has an empathetic component, is apathetic overall. The individuals, regardless of their age and sex, groom for selfish rather than unselfish reasons.

The mature male grooms a wife to keep her from straying to another male, rather than to keep her happy. This can be construed as courtship, but it is hard to see it as romantic. It is perhaps the closest thing to altruism a mature male does in his life.

Females do groom each other reciprocally. However, this is downplayed in this species under the shadow of intimidation by the mature male. Females groom the male to placate him as much as to please him; i.e. they groom out of fear as much as out of love. The ‘love’ part is so tenuous that it takes special stimuli, such as the arm-raising gesture, to facilitate it over the ‘speed-hump’ of fear.
 
So I see grooming as an example of ‘the lengths baboons have to go to in order to get along in a social system downplaying empathy’.
 
In terms of quantification:
Grooming in the hamadryas baboon seems motivated by empathy only about half as much as by apathy. I.e. the love of grooming as a way of giving motivates the activity in only say five instances relative to every 10 in which the main motivation is the fear of failing to groom as a way of protecting one’s own interests. This crude quantification approximates perhaps to 0.5, where 0 would mean total apathy in the behaviour concerned, 1 would mean parity between empathyy and apathy, infinity would mean total empathy, and 10 would mean tenfold more empathy than apathy.    
 
The empathy/apathy ratio for grooming in the hamadryas baboon seems, to me, to be about 0.5. I.e. if I see an instance of grooming I figure that it’s about twice as likely to be motivated by fear than by love. It is not that grooming lacks emotional significance, it is that the emotions involved are about twice as likely to be ‘negative’ as ‘positive’.
 
And, as we shall see below, when one goes from grooming to other behaviours, it is ‘all downhill’ in terms of empathy.
 
See http://theprancingpapio.blogspot.com.au/p/the-blog.html.

 EMBRACING 
  
There are at least three circumstances in which individuals of baboons embrace each other: the maternal-infant bond in all species, and sexual bonds including the marriage bond and extra-marriage (‘illicit’) sex. Embracing is incomparably rarer among adult baboons than grooming is, and less ritualised.

As we found for grooming, embracing in baboons is ambivalent.

In a naive and superficial view based on assumptions of human empathy, it might be thought that embracing is a simple affirmation of love between two individuals. And in the case of the maternal embrace this is a fair interpretation, although fear is involved. However, in adulthood embracing in baboons is always more fear-based than love-based. For a mature male to embrace an infant always means some fearful situation, such as protection from a predator or a kidnapping.
 
We have seen that in the hamadryas baboon, in general, there is respect for priority in the ‘possession’ of females. However, on occasions when this respect is in danger of breaking down, the male will embrace the female as if to remind the rival of the rules.

As readers can see, this is an embrace of fear (of losing the wife) more than love. Males never embrace their wives when relaxed and free of anxiety. The embrace emphasises the possessive intent of the male. The female participates in it because she fears being punished if she does not affirm the marriage. I.e. the motivation for the embrace is the male’s selfish interests.
 
A more complicated and even more counterintuitive situation in which the embrace occurs is described by Kummer (1995) on page 36.

“The sexually mature subadults...would hug each other when they themselves were afraid, especially when they were meeting for secret sex out of...sight [of the mature male]. A rendezvous lasts several minutes, because baboons mate with serial copulations, only the last of which results in ejaculation. During such a meeting, during each pause the young female rushed to a place where she could see [the mature male of the family], then hurried back to her partner and presented herself to him for the next round. Sometimes her lover accompanied her to the point where they could be seen. Then if [the family male’s] gaze turned on them, they fell terrified into each other’s arms and clawed their hands into each other’s hair again and again, kecking, with their faces turned towards the patriarch. Often the young female would actually leap onto her lover’s back, and he would flee with the precious load in great agitation, as though he were trying to save her from a leopard. Now, a reader who thinks that this flight was toward the farthest, most secluded niche in the rocks would be entirely sensible, but utterly wrong...In fact, the young pair would dash toward [the family male] for salvation and embrace in front of him, clutching at each other with great urgency, while he usually looked mildly on. The, separately and somewhat more calmly, they returned to their love [nook].”
 
So, as readers can see, embracing is basically similar to grooming in its ambivalence. When one sees two individuals of any species of baboon embracing each other, know that you are watching an anxious moment, not a loving and relaxed one.
 
And, as I mentioned in a previous Post, I doubt that two brothers, having grown up together, would ever embrace in adulthood. This is because they do not retain any apparent affection for each other in adulthood.

If brothers interact, it is usually with fearful or angry emotion, in which embracing is not seen as placatory but would be assumed to mean an attack. Instead of an embrace, the thing to do in such a situation would be for one of the brothers to present the posterior. This, in the hanasryas baboon, is the equivalent of a handshake. However, it only works because

• it orients the teeth away from the other individual so that there is no question of attack, and
• it is effeminate enough to signify that the male rivalry is temporarily suspended.

In summary, beyond infancy the main reason that adult baboons cannot embrace each other in love and relaxation is that they do not trust each other - trust arising from empathy.

Posted on 14 de julho de 2022, 10:17 AM by milewski