Grooming, Language, and Social Bonding

As a high school sophomore at Pine Crest High School in Fort Lauderdale, Amy Schnidman approached the DuMond Conservancy about the possibility of conducting her own research project at Monkey Jungle. Specifically, she wanted to investigate Dr. Robin Dunbar's theory that language evolved in hominids as a more efficient method of social bonding.

Dunbar suggests that grooming is the primary mechanism for social bonding in non-human primates. However, as group size increased during primate evolution, primates did not have enough time to maintain social bonds through grooming. This may have created pressure to develop a more efficient method of establishing and maintaining bonds within in a group, and Dunbar proposes that language developed as that method.
 

Research investigating human conversation support Dunbar's hypothesis. Such studies have revealed that approximately two-thirds of conversations were social gossip. Dunbar suggests the function of gossip is similar to grooming in our primate cousins.

Before Amy began doing her own research at the DuMond Conservancy she contacted Robin Dunbar for advice. She also shared her ideas with Japanese primatologist, Nakamura, who studies a similar question in chimpanzee social groups. After talking with these and other primatologists, Amy decided to study the large group of over one hundred Java macaques at the Conservancy...

Amy observed the macaques grooming in large grooming cliques of up to eight monkeys. This is probably much larger than any grooming clique that would be observed in nature, and it may be a result of the protection and food resources made available to the monkeys at our facility. Amy also investigated the role of communication in grooming. She found that communication was used to initiate grooming, but was not observed during grooming.

Amy has interpreted these results as not supporting Dunbar's hypothesis, but she is continuing to investigate the topic. She has received state-wide recognition for her scientific abilities, and was recently granted first prize in the Florida Junior Academy of Science Competition. We wish her all the luck in her future studies and research.