Impaired reconciliation in rhesus macaques with a history of early weaning and disturbed socialization

An attempt had been made to create five social groups from rhesus macaques with a history of early separation from their mothers, early weaning and hand feeding and, in most cases, previous housing in single cages. We investigated the exchange of affiliative behaviours after an aggressive encounter and selective attraction to the former opponent, a phenomenon previously well described in rhesus monkeys and called reconciliation. Evidence for reconciliation was only found in one of the five groups studied (corrected conciliatory tendency=13%). This group consisted of younger animals that had, at least temporarily, been living together after separation from their mothers. In the other groups studied, containing animals with a varied background, aggressive interactions were not followed by affiliative behaviours or attraction between former opponents. Our results indicate that the use of reconciliatory behaviours in adult monkeys is dependent upon social training. Lack of functional reconciliation might be one of the explanations to the severe and uncontrolled aggression previously found in groups of rhesus macaques created from animals with disturbed early socialization.