Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T06:21:27.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reasons to strike first

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2019

William Buckner  and
Luke Glowacki
William Buckner
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616. wvbuckner@ucdavis.eduhttps://traditionsofconflict.com/about/
Luke Glowacki
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. glowacki@psu.edu https://www.hsb-lab.org/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

De Dreu and Gross predict that attackers will have more difficulty winning conflicts than defenders. As their analysis is presumed to capture the dynamics of decentralized conflict, we consider how their framework compares with ethnographic evidence from small-scale societies, as well as chimpanzee patterns of intergroup conflict. In these contexts, attackers have significantly more success in conflict than predicted by De Dreu and Gross's model. We discuss the possible reasons for this disparity.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e119
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Böhm, R., Rusch, H. & Güreck, O. (2016) What makes people go to war? Defensive intentions motivate retaliatory and preemptive intergroup aggression. Evolution and Human Behavior 37(1):29–34. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2015.06.005.Google Scholar
Chagnon, N. A. (1988) Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population. Science 239(4843):985–92.Google Scholar
Falk, D. & Hildebolt, C.F. (2017) Annual war deaths in small-scale versus state societies scale with population size rather than violence. Current Anthropology 58(6):805–13.Google Scholar
Gat, A. (1999) The pattern of fighting in simple, small-scale, prestate societies. Journal of Anthropological Research 55(4):563–583.Google Scholar
Gilby, I. C., Brent, L. J., Wroblewski, E. E., Rudicell, R. S., Hahn, B. H., Goodall, J. & Pusey, A. E. (2013) Fitness benefits of coalitionary aggression in male chimpanzees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 67(3):373–81.Google Scholar
Glowacki, L. & Wrangham, R.W. (2013) The role of rewards in motivating participation in simple warfare. Human Nature 24(4):444–60. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-013-9178-8.Google Scholar
Glowacki, L. & Wrangham, R.W. (2015) Warfare and reproductive success in a tribal population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 112(2):348–353.Google Scholar
Langergraber, K.E., Watts, D.P., Vigilant, L. & Mitani, J.C. (2017) Group augmentation, collective action, and territorial boundary patrols by male chimpanzees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 114(28):7337–42.Google Scholar
LeBlanc, S.A. (2016) Forager warfare and our evolutionary past. In: Violence and warfare among hunter-gatherers, ed. Allen, M. W. & Jones, T. L., pp. 26–46. Routledge.Google Scholar
Macfarlan, S. J., Erickson, P. I., Yost, J., Regalado, J., Jaramillo, L. & Beckerman, S. (2018) Bands of brothers and in-laws: Waorani warfare, marriage and alliance formation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285(1890). pii: 20181859. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1859.Google Scholar
Macfarlan, S. J., Walker, R. S., Flinn, M. V. & Chagnon, N. A. (2014) Lethal coalitionary aggression and long-term alliance formation among Yanomamö men. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111(47):16662–69.Google Scholar
Manson, J. H. & Wrangham, R. W. (1991) Intergroup aggression in chimpanzees and humans. Current Anthropology 32(4):369–90.Google Scholar
Otterbein, K. (2009) The anthropology of war. Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1922) The Andaman islanders: A study in social anthropology. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rusch, H. (2013) Asymmetries in altruistic behavior during violent intergroup conflict. Evolutionary Psychology 11(5):973–93.Google Scholar
Rusch, H. (2014a) The two sides of warfare: An extended model of altruistic behavior in ancestral human intergroup conflict. Human Nature 25(3):359–77. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-014-9199-yGoogle Scholar
Walker, R. S. & Bailey, D. H. (2013) Body counts in lowland South American violence. Evolution and Human Behavior 34(1):29–34. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.08.003.Google Scholar
Williams, J.M., Oehlert, G.W., Carlis, J.V. & Pusey, A.E. (2004) Why do male chimpanzees defend a group range? Animal Behaviour 68(3):523–32.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. L., Boesch, C., Fruth, B., Furuichi, T., Gilby, I. C., Hashimoto, C., Hobaiter, C. L., Hohmann, G., Itoh, N., Koops, K., Lloyd, J. N., Matsuzawa, T., Mitani, J. C., Miungu, D. C., Morgan, D., Muller, M. N., Mundry, R., Nakamura, M., Pruetz, J., Pusey, A. E., Riedel, J., Sanz, C., Schel, A. M., Simmons, N., Waller, M., Watts, D. P., White, F., Wittig, R. M., Zuberbühler, K. & Wrangham, R. W. (2014) Lethal aggression in Pan is better explained by adaptive strategies than human impacts. Science 513:414–17.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. L. & Glowacki, L. (2017) Violent cousins: Chimpanzees, humans, and the roots of war. In: Chimpanzees and human evolution, ed. Muller, M., Pilbeam, D. & Wrangham, R.. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, B. M., Watts, D. P., Mitani, J. C. & Langergraber, K. E. (2017) Favorable ecological circumstances promote life expectancy in chimpanzees similar to that of human hunter-gatherers. Journal of Human Evolution 105:41–56.Google Scholar
Wrangham, R. W. (1999) Evolution of coalitionary killing. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 42:1–30.Google Scholar
Wrangham, R. W. & Glowacki, L. (2012) Intergroup aggression in chimpanzees and war in nomadic hunter-gatherers: Evaluating the chimpanzee model. Human Nature 23:5–29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-012-9132-1.Google Scholar