Reviews Post-conflict Behaviour in Long-tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

We studied the occurrence of social interactions characterizing post-conflict situations in a group of long-tailed macaques. Victims of agonistic conflicts showed reconciliation: they had more affiliative contacts with the former aggressor after a conflict than in control periods. There was no evidence for consolation: victims did not contact other groups members than the former aggressor, or specific subsets of group members, earlier after a conflict than in control periods. Victims did not exchange more affiliative contacts with either their own kin or the aggressor's kin during post-conflict periods. Even though the time spent in allogrooming did not increase after agonistic conflicts, former aggressors were the only group members with which the victim increased the grooming exchange relative to other group members. The victim characteristically showed an increase of agonistic behaviour in post-conflict situations, a phenomenon labelled redirection. This increase was most pronounced in the first minute after a conflict. The aggressor's kin were targets of post-conflict aggression relatively more often than other group members. We also examined the interdependence between the only two post-conflict social events that we could operationally define, namely reconciliation and redirection. Reconciliation occurred more frequently after redirection had taken place, whereas redirection was less likely after reconciliation had taken place. These results indicate that (1) achieving reconciliation has the highest priority for the victim, and (2) aggressors are more likely to grant reconciliation after the victim redirected aggression.