Stranger to Familiar: Wild Strepsirhines Manage Xenophobia by Playing

The power of play in limiting xenophobia is a well-known phenomenon in humans. Yet, the evidence in social animals remains meager. Here, we aim to determine whether play promotes social tolerance toward strangers in one of the most basal group of primates, the strepsirhines. We observed two groups of wild lemurs (Propithecus verreauxi, Verreaux's sifaka) during the mating season. Data were also collected on nine visiting, outgroup males. We compared the distribution of play, grooming, and aggressive interactions across three conditions: OUT (resident/outgroup interactions), IN (resident/resident interactions in presence of outgroups) and BL-IN (baseline of resident/resident interactions in absence of outgroups). Play frequency between males was higher in OUT than in IN and BL-IN conditions; whereas, grooming was more frequent in IN than in OUT and BL-IN conditions. Aggression rates between resident and outgroup males were significantly higher than those between residents. However, aggressions between resident and outgroup males significantly decreased after the first play session and became comparable with resident-resident aggression levels. The presence of strangers in a well-established group implies the onset of novel social circumstances, which sifaka males cope with by two different tactics: grooming with ingroup males and playing with outgroup ones. The grooming peak, concurrently with the visit of outgroups, probably represents a social shield adopted by resident males to make their pre-existing affiliation more evident to the stranger “audience”. Being mostly restricted to unfamiliar males, adult play in sifaka appears to have a role in managing new social situations more than in maintaining old relationships. In particular, our results indicate not only that play is the interface between strangers but also that it has a specific function in reducing xenophobia. In conclusion, play appears to be an ice-breaker mechanism in the critical process that “upgrades” an individual from stranger to familiar

La política exterior de los Estados Unidos y el desarrollo del Tercer Mundo

What are the main guidelines and consequences of the current policy of the United States towards Latin America? What would be required to steer policy in a direction that would be most beneficial for the development of Latin America? The questions invite a thorough critique of current practices and an examination of national requirements or preconditions for accelerated development and the general role of the US as an obstruction to structural changes that would allow for faster development in the Third World. By definition, any set of US foreign policies that are more compatible with Third World development will have to include a much larger proportion of actions of consideration to others than the current self-consideration ones.¿Cuáles son los lineamientos y las consecuencias primordiales de la política actual de los Estados Unidos hacia Latinoamérica? ¿Que se requeriría para orientar Ia política en una dirección que resultara más beneficiosa para el desarrollo de América Latina? Las preguntas invitan a una crítica minuciosa de las prácticas actuales y a un examen de los requisitos nacionales o las precondiciones del desarrollo acelerado y el papel general de los EE.UU. como obstrucción para los cambios estructurales que permitirían el desarrollo más rápido en el Tercer Mundo. Por definición, cualquier conjunto de políticas exteriores de los Estados Unidos que resulte más compatible con el desarrollo del Tercer Mundo tendrá que incluir una proporción mucho más grande de acciones de consideración a otros, en comparación con las de auto consideración de la actual