Brenna,
Unless I'm missing something because I'm glossing this fairly quickly, I have two major issues with this study, and one with your interest in relating the findings to genocide. I did search around for about 30 mins for some references, but didn't find much.
The two issues for the study:
1. I didn't read any information or reviews on literature relating to a major experimental caveat--the possible effects of putting chimpanzees in this foreign, seemingly human environment and decision-making situation. Whether it's in the source article or not I can't tell, but scientific studies (at least in my area of study) always attempt to address such basic caveats. That information strongly influences how believable, important, or applicable this result is by giving you an idea how far you can generalize the result.
(note I did read
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/130/1/1 to get some idea on within-troop chimpanzee behavior while searching for other information)
2. I didn't see that these experimenters tested humans in the same situation. If you (generic you) want to show that chimps are not spiteful but humans are, then there's two things you gotta show. They only showed that, in this situation, chimps do not act spitefully. Did I miss the data on human behavior?
3. (OK, 3, not two) In this study, you have a group of 13 chimps where their relationship to each other is unspecified. With the group (troop) "in vs. out" so critical in the animal world, I wonder about how within-troop relations differ from a group of "misfits" with no strong troop ties (the probable situation in this study).
The biggest issue I have, however, is with your desire to link this study to genocide. This study does not address between-troop behavior at all, and as you've seemingly agreed in response to another post, genocide is just that--killing based on group inclusion/exclusion.
From what I've seen and read through documentaries and articles on behavior, I don't see that human attitudes which lead to genocide are so different from attitudes of chimps, lions (which I read last night), baboons, and undoubtedly other animals as well. There are not only territorial fights between groups, but attacks on non-threatening individuals that are not in the group.
(ABE: I did do a bit of searching for information on chimp troops, but found surprisingly little. The only mention I saw was in the
Wikipedia Bonobo entry, the quote pasted below. But all the documentaries I've seen have been very clear about the very violent and aggressive behavior of chimps on extra-troop individuals, as well as lion behavior towards extra-pride lions as well as hyenas and the same with baboons)
Recent observations in the wild have seemed to indicate that the males among the Common Chimpanzee troops are extraordinarily hostile to males from outside of the troop. Parties are organized to "patrol" for the unfortunate males who might be living nearby in a solitary state. (Some researchers have suggested, however, that this behaviour has been caused by a combination of human contact and interference and massive environmental stress caused by deforestation and a corresponding range reduction.[11])
Bonobo - Wikipedia
To me, the biggest difference is in the ability to pull these things off. In the wild, it is so costly to fight in a "spiteful" way that killing seems to happen only along very practical boundaries. But when easy opportunities come to kill off non-threatening members outside their group, other animals do it.
For some humans, we are not so tightly tied to our environments, and our struggle for existence is not so great. We have the means (the wealth and time) to go ahead and kill others outside our group at our leisure.
Not the cleanest or best explanation of what I'm thinking, but it'll have to do! Gotta go to work! Peace.
Edited by Ben, : added tiny info on inter-troop interaction in chimps
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