A primatologist spent years watching a baboon troop and documented the exact behaviors survivors describe: the bully who escalates at random, the apology that arrives with an audience, the group that reorganizes itself around one individual's temper. None of it was your imagination. All of it is on record.
Dr. Christine Webb is a Harvard-trained primatologist and Assistant Professor at New York University, where she is part of the Animal Studies program. Her book is The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters.
"He put his hand between my hiking boots, he looked up at me, and he bared his teeth into this very awkward, forced grimace."
In this conversation we cover why aggression is rarely about the thing it appears to be about, what reconciliation actually restores, and the critical difference between an apology and a submission display. Dr. Webb also walks through the Sapolsky study in which a troop's most aggressive males died off and the group's culture changed permanently, a change that outlasted every animal who had lived through it.
If you have ever been told you were reading too much into it, this episode is a record of researchers reading exactly that much into it, on purpose, with notebooks.
RESOURCES
Christine's book: https://amzn.to/4wxU4Bk
Christine's website: https://www.cewebb.com/
Christine's papers: https://www.cewebb.com/papers
Sapolsky & Share, "A Pacific Culture among Wild Baboons" (PLoS Biology, 2004):
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020106
Brad's microphone: https://amzn.to/4jVOjqq
WATCH NEXT
Robert Greene on The Laws of Human Nature: https://youtu.be/64MsV-FECsY
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00:00 In This Episode
00:56 Introducing Dr. Christine Webb
01:22 What Aggression Actually Does in a Group
04:58 The Mobbing: When the Group Turns on You
08:08 The Apology That Broke the Rules
10:47 Are Apologies Ever Sincere?
11:51 Why Words Are the Weakest Evidence
17:48 Consolation: Comfort From a Bystander
20:06 The Rule That Trains Scientists to Doubt Animal Minds
26:12 Unique vs. Superior
28:29 When a Leader Has Zero Empathy
29:38 The Troop That Changed After the Bullies Died
32:40 How a Group Handles a Despotic Leader
34:39 Coerced Females: Dr. Webb's Own Research
39:28 Chimps vs. Bonobos: The Stereotype Problem
45:05 Bluff Displays: Getting Loud to Get Your Way
50:56 The Lab, the Cages, and MacDuff
57:34 Prison Populations and the Psychopathy Problem
01:01:53 The Translation Crisis in Animal Research
01:05:51 Find Dr. Christine Webb Online
01:06:09 What Primates Teach Us About Repair
01:08:46 Further Recommendation: Robert Greene on The Laws of Human Nature
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