Sex Differences in Reconciliation and Post‐Conflict Anxiety in Bonnet Macaques

Abstract

Abstract Rates of reconciliation vary widely between different types of opponents, and post‐conflict anxiety has been proposed to mediate individual variation in reconciliation rates. We investigated the form and function of reconciliation in a wild, provisioned group of bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata) with the prediction that sex differences in post‐conflict anxiety would be associated with sex differences in conciliatory tendency. Individuals in the study group had a conciliatory tendency of 29.3%. Victims avoided their former opponents at a higher rate following aggression than during matched‐control samples, and reconciliation decreased the rate of avoidance. Although victims showed a higher rate of anxiety‐related behavior than did aggressors, anxiety‐related behavior was elevated after aggression and reduced following reconciliation in both victims and aggressors. Female–female opponents showed higher rates of anxiety‐related behavior before reconciliation than they did following unreconciled aggression. In contrast, male–male and female–male opponents showed increased anxiety‐related behavior following aggression regardless of the occurrence of reconciliation. Moreover, female–female opponents had a higher conciliatory tendency than did female–male opponents. The elevated post‐conflict anxiety shown by female–female opponents before reconciliation, along with their high conciliatory tendency, suggests that post‐conflict anxiety promotes reconciliation. In sum, the sex differences in post‐conflict behavior found in this study support the hypothesis that variation in post‐conflict anxiety mediates differential rates of reconciliation.

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