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Scientific Study of Non-Violence
submission device. In certain rare cases, the loser will admit defeat by offering a vulnerable area to the attacker. A chimpanzee, for example, holds out its hand as a gesture of submission, rendering it extremely vulnerable to a serious bite. This gesture serves to appease the dominant individual.
There are other appeasement signals too. The weaker animal crouches and begs from the dominant one, in an infantile posture characteristic of the particular species, a device especially favoured by females when they are being attacked by males. It is often so effective that the male responds by regurgitating some food to the female, when the latter completes the food-begging ritual by swallowing it. Now in a thoroughly protective mood, the male loses his aggression and the pair calm down together. Another is the adoption of a female sexual posture by the weaker animal. Regardless of its sex, or its sexual condition it may suddenly assume the female rump-presentation posture towards the attacker; this stimulates a sexual response which dampens the mood of aggression in the latter. In such situations, a dominant male or female will mount and pseudo-copulate with either a submissive male or a submissive female. Furthermore, the weaker animal may either invite the winner to groom it, or may make signals requesting permission to perform the grooming itself. Monkeys make great use of this device and this can occasionally be observed in a zoo in the monkey's enclosure. They have a special facial gesture to go with it, consisting of rapidly smacking the lips together-a modified, ritualised version of part of the normal grooming ceremony. When one monkey grooms another, it repeatedly pops fragments of skin and other detritus into its mouth, smacking its lips as it does so. By exaggerating the smacking movements and speeding them up, it signals its readiness to perform this duty and frequently manages in this way to suppress the aggression of the attacker and persuade it to relax and allow itself to be groomed. After a while the dominant individual is so lulled by this procedure that the weakling can slip away unharmed.
Through these threat signals and submissive displays, the animals of a species avoid fighting to a finish. Further order and peace is achieved through the following two procedures:
Members of many species of animals, divide the available
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