Chimpanzee Behavioral Styles, for Dominance

The different approaches adult chimpanzees use to establish, communicate and maintain their position in a dominance hierarchy is influenced by their ‘behavioral style’, or combination of personality, temperament and preference (Anetsis 2005). While doing research on stress and dominance in chimpanzees, Dr. Stephanie Anestis found that dominant chimpanzees consistently engage in certain behavioral styles. By using a collection of modified intelligence and personality tests, she determined that dominance was most likely to be found in chimpanzees whose behavioral types reflected intelligence; they utilized aggression to maintain status, and enough mellowness to reduce the impacts of stress. Chimpanzees that were more affinitive, playful, and friendly were usually submissive. Consequently they exhibited these submissive behaviors more frequently; a ‘bob-crouch’, where an individual crouches over and bobs head while moving, pant-grunting, and ‘hand-reach’, a noncontact movement similar to a child reaching for its mother (Coe and Levin 2006)."