The Occurrence of Postconflict Skills in Captive Immature Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Conflict management strategies can reduce costs of aggressive competition in group-living animals. Post-conflict behaviours such as reconciliation and third party post-conflict affiliation are widely accepted as social skills in primates and have been demonstrated in many species. Although immature primates possess a repertoire of species-specific behaviours, it is thought that they gradually develop appropriate social skills throughout prolonged juvenility to establish and maintain complex social relationships within their group. We examined the occurrence of post-conflict skills in five immature chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) over 15 months focussing on interactions that were not with the subject’s mother. We observed reconciliation, with conciliatory tendencies comparable to adults, and provide the first evidence that captive immature chimpanzees commonly reconciled using social play. However, immatures were not more likely to reconcile valuable than non-valuable relationships. We also observed third party post-conflict affiliation although at a lower level than reported for adults. Our results provide evidence for post-conflict skills in immature chimpanzees but the lack of higher conciliatory tendency with valuable partners and low occurrence of third party affiliation indicates extended juvenility may be required refine these skills. Further work is needed to investigate whether these behaviours have the same function and effectiveness as those found in adults