
For Bonobos, it pays to have powerful allies - Thimothy
https://today.duke.edu/2018/01/bonobos-prefer-jerks
======
jVinc
"The results support the idea that a tendency to avoid individuals who
mistreat others is one of the things that make humans different from other
species."

The researchers desperately need to take a night out in town and observer
other humans a bit. They've acquired a biased view from being cooped up with
university people for far too long. I feel like I see directly contradictory
behavior on a weekly basis.

~~~
xya3453
100%. One of the disadvantages of living the privileged, protected life as an
academic is the inability to accurately draw conclusions about the majority of
humanity.

~~~
stinkytaco
This seems like a jump. Two, actually. First, that academics, who work in a
charged political environment and with college students, are sheltered. Second
that the majority of humans prefer jerks. I don't know that we can
substantiate either of those claims.

It's true that jerks can be in positions of power, but it's hard to say that
people prefer them. Indeed, it appears that many people strongly dislike them,
but that they are protected by their power and other people with power (a
distinct minority).

~~~
xya3453
> First, that academics, who work in a charged political environment and with
> college students, are sheltered.

It's exactly because they find themselves in such an environment that they're
sheltered. You think the majority of humanity has access to safe-spaces,
policed speech and diversity initiatives? US college campuses do not reflect
reality.

~~~
stinkytaco
The "real" world also has fewer fraternities, entitled college athletes and
less binge drinking. Academic departments are also highly charged political
atmospheres, more than any place I've ever worked since I left college.
Perhaps I have just been lucky, but I wouldn't go into academia for much less
than a boatload of money.

------
notthemessiah
As usual with science headlines, it's an oversimplification at best, and
inaccurate at worst.

The results seemed to indicate that Bonobos preferred those who were at the
top of the social hierarchy. The experiment would only be decisive if they
could find a way to deconvolve jerkishness from dominance.

 _The researchers say there may be a good reason for these puzzling results.
It could be that bonobos interpret rudeness as a sign of social status and are
simply trying to keep dominant individuals on their side. In other words, it
pays to have powerful allies._

 _To test the idea, the team showed 24 bonobos another set of animated videos
in which one cartoon character repeatedly prevents another one from claiming a
coveted spot. The apes generally preferred the character who hogged the spot
over the one who yielded._

 _For bonobos, schmoozing with dominant individuals could mean better access
to food, mates or other perks, or less chance of being bullied themselves,
Krupenye said._

~~~
agumonkey
Got me very curious on what part of our brain evolved into spatial protection.

------
farnsworthy
And chickens prefer attractive people:

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/animals-
chickens...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/animals-chickens-
evolution-eggs-food/)

Rough out there.

------
anjc
> To test the idea, the team showed 24 bonobos another set of animated videos
> in which one cartoon character repeatedly prevents another one from claiming
> a coveted spot. The apes generally preferred the character who hogged the
> spot over the one who yielded.

> they showed 24 bonobos animated videos of a Pac-Man-like shape as it
> struggles to climb a hill. Then another cartoon shape enters the scene.

Nevermind the 'jerk' part, I'm impressed that researchers are interpreting ape
preferences via cartoons

~~~
bitwize
Me too. If you showed one group of humans Bugs Bunny and another group of
humans Care Bears, they would show a marked preference for Bugs Bunny (who
usually abuses poor Elmer Fudd) because it's _funnier_. Does that mean
_humans_ prefer jerks, or just jerky cartoon characters?

~~~
true_religion
Well to be fair to Bugs Bunny, he is a prey animal trying to avoid being
killed. One might say that people just prefer underdogs winning.

------
aaron-lebo
_The results support the idea that a tendency to avoid individuals who
mistreat others is one of the things that make humans different from other
species._

What's the evidence for that? Humans love people who mistreat others. We'll
die for them and canonize them, for similar reasons as bonobos: they exude
power, confidence, strength, certainty. A cursory overview of history and a
lot of relationships will support that.

Happy to be wrong. What studies are they referring to?

~~~
empthought
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06288](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06288)

I believe this bonobo study is considered salient precisely because it is
trying to be an analogue to studies of humans that have found the opposite
result.

~~~
fjfaase
This is a study of preverbal infants. Maybe infants do also discriminate
between dominant and less dominant individuals, but at their age, being very
care dependent, have a much stronger preference for kind individuals. Maybe
infant bonobo's react in the same manner. I am also getting the impression
that with adult humans dominance often plays a strong role over kindness.

------
nukeop
Science confirms what we've known for a long time - humans are unique in their
ability to act according to morality, instead of pure survival value. We have
eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and have free will. Animals
don't.

~~~
OneWordSoln
And yet most people _still_ deny it (as evidenced by your being downvoted).

Our unique talents also include abstract reasoning and communication as well
as advanced tool making, yet most human beings are still acting within the
mammalian level of behavior which mostly comprises pack warfare and alpha-
dominance seeking, and we are all witness to the disastrous effects those sub-
human tendencies are having upon each other as well as the Earth itself (via
our short-term profit-seeking over the long-term well-being of the Earth for
our descendants benefit).

Love -- via selfless service to others' happiness -- is the most unique of
human traits as it facilitates our rising above our mammalian tendencies
(literally, from a brain structure standpoint) to segregate and wage war upon
others of any perceived difference, be it physical (ethnic) or ideological
(form of religion, neighborhood, country, sexual orientation or identity,
etc.).

Only by accepting the primacy of our free wills upon this Earth and the
necessity of our training our minds to differentiate good from evil and then
choosing the former can we stop the devastation of the Earth and its less
fortunate individuals.

Until then, the vast majority of human beings will remain, as Wisdom states,
"like the animals, only worse".

~~~
LMYahooTFY
I don't know that most people deny it, nor that down votes on this thread are
evidence of anything...

It can't be modeled scientifically. People deny it because it's in effect a
dogma. I don't say that as a slight, our society is built on the notion of
free will.

It's simply that the notions exist in a level of abstraction, so the point is
moot if you continue living your day to day life, except insofar as you let it
affect your mental state.

~~~
nukeop
Not everything has to be modeled scientifically in order to be true. Science
is not the only source of truth.

