Grooming and gossip. Primate psychology I

In the book Primate Psychology written by David Maestripieri in the chapter on social development and affiliation I found grooming treated as an altruistic activity, that is one in which the groomer gives, at some loss to itself, a benefit to another. This came as a surprise as my previous reading, admittedly only really about chimpanzees, had instilled in me the understanding that the benefits were equally distributed, the groomer finding the flakes of salt from sweat amongst the hairs, which it ate.

This chapter has a lot to say about parent/child interactions which I shall return to, but the issues of grooming and gossip are in the forefront of my mind and must be addressed first.

Primate grooming contains three basic elements: close proximity, physical contact, and manipulating hair. It probably contains a fourth, which must be inferred, a communicative element relating to relationship i.e. that the groomer is in some way positively inclined towards the one it is grooming. Reconciliation after a conflict event may include grooming of the attacker by the victim for example.

It is this element which might be used, though I have not read such, as part of the development of gossip as a substitute for grooming, it being taken for granted that normal primate grooming became impossible for the naked ape! A point usually made is that gossip allows the bonding to be more than dyadic, a person can gossip with several others so that bonding can take place in larger groups more efficiently; but it will be seen that in this scenario all the three elements have disappeared! In effect, the assumption is that group cohesion in Homo sapiens required a new mechanism. I am not denying the relevance of language to group formation and cohesion but I do suggest that in fact those three basic elements are still operational, still performing their necessary function.

Hair manipulation. This is a major activity in many cultures (probably all cultures but I cannot actually assert that). I remember as a teenager my classmates endlessly fussing in the cloakrooms with their own and each other's hair, the "beehive" was in fashion and required endless backcombing and hair lacquer. I wore my curly hair in a ponytail in secondary school, and every now and then in a boring lesson I would feel the girl in the desk behind playing with my hair. I remember clearly the disgusted ticking off I received from one teacher for allowing this, "you were taking a sensuous pleasure in it!" Too right I was! (The girl manipulating my hair got off scot-free, perhaps I was unconsciously recognised as the dominant one in the exchange). I am sure that the whole hairdressing industry worldwide owes a large part of its success to our primate grooming heritage. Patrick O'Brian mentions in his Jack Aubrey novels the sailors tie partners, the mates who regularly retied each others long pigtails. Examples of reciprical hair care, or hair care by subordinates, can be found in cultures past and present round the world.

Picking on that word sensuous, think of all the cat cuddling and pet stroking that goes on, and of our liking for furry fabrics like chenille, or indeed for furs. I have discussed in chapter 9 human hair as a genetically encoded sexual signal, the whole hejab argument is unconsciously fuelled by that fact, not to mention St Paul 's problems in 1 Corinthians with all those unveiled women praying and prophesying! Consider the sexy woman in a fur coat, signalling that she is groomable and so, maybe, available. Grooming between heterosexual pairs in primates is often associated, pre-or post, with copulation.

Physical contact. There are many ways in which humans touch each other that are the continuation of basic primate grooming activity. Consider how a wife may fuss with her husband's clothing, or how a man helps a woman on with her coat. Primate Psychology notes how dominant animals are frequently groomed by subordinate animals: put that alongside life in the leisured upper classes in times past, when maids and valets dressed and brushed and primped their employers several times a day. Lots of submission, lots of physical contact. The English are not very tactile but even here the casual hand on the arm or shoulder, the slap on the back etc are reasonably common among acquaintances. All that hugging by footballers on the pitch after a goal is very chimpanzees like. Some years ago a survey was conducted that showed that people felt much more positively towards someone who had, accidentally, touched them. I think they used something like a library checkout situation where the assistant could accidentally touch while taking or giving out a book, but the result shows that grooming in its original form,i.e. physical contact, still has the original effect.

In tribal cultures people help each other with their hair, with body painting etc. I am sure many of you, my imaginary readers know more about that than I do.

Close proximity does not require any comment from me.

My interest in all this stems from my conviction that all that was important for the survival of our hominid and hominin forebears is still playing its part today.

Future Research. I don't know if any research has already been done on the physical contact as a bonding mechanism, or perhaps as a calming, conflict prevention mechanism, within groups of humans (although I suppose that survey might have been something of the sort), I have not come across it in this current book. A hidden surveillance camera recording at, for example, a cocktail party, high-level conference of some kind, the corridors and anti-rooms where difficult political negotiations are in progress (no sound of course) if such could be arranged might give interesting information about how much touch, intentional or "accidental", takes place and between whom. Failing that perhaps video recordings of people in shops, at sports venues, and add your own ideas, could be tried. Another angle could be formalised contact such as handshaking, examined across cultures.

The basic research on the importance of physical touch has already been done by psychotherapists. As one, I know something of the damage done as a result of too little physical contact in infancy and childhood. I mean of course positive, comforting, loving physical contact! After all, the primate psyche and then the hominin psyche evolved in continuous physical contact during its vital infant phase.

I will conclude this with the return to the original premise I found in the book, that grooming can be seen as an asymmetrical, altruistic activity. This is an example of a false idea resulting from a basic ignorance of the psyche, in which the doing and the being-done-to are interchangeable. In the unconscious a person is simultaneously the baby and the mother, the abuser and the abused, the rejecting and the rejected object. So the physiological benefits of being groomer or groomee, which originate in the psyche, are identical.