Abstract:

Despite the acknowledged prevalence of culture within non-human primate societies, research has predominantly focused on material or social traditions, neglecting the potential cultural shaping of individual interactions and its implications for group-level social dynamics (Kaufhold & van Leeuwen, 2019; van de Waal, 2019). While some studies have identified intraspecific variation in group-level social structure (e.g. van Leeuwen et al., 2018; Kerjean et al., 2023), limitations in sample size and comparability have hindered conclusive understanding. Addressing this gap, we investigated the sociality of eight groups of captive rhesus macaques with comparable demographics and housing conditions. Employing behavioral observations and experimental measures, including cofeeding tolerance plots, we assessed their group-level sociality with social network analysis. Our findings reveal group-specific patterns in affiliative and agonistic interactions, social network structures, and cofeeding tolerance, indicating a cultural influence on these behaviors. We propose that commonplace interactions such as grooming are, at least partially, culturally shaped among macaques, giving rise to distinct "social cultures" within groups. This study underscores the pervasive role of culture across behavioral domains in non-human primates.

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