Monkey style: Primate Social Behavior

HEB 30 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

This course provides an overview of primate social behavior and will cover topics such as kinship, social structure, friendship, competition, cooperation, dominance, development, mating systems, parental care, inter-group relationships, social learning, and applications to humans. Over the course of the semester we will attempt to address fundamental questions about the Primate order from three perspectives:

1. Evolutionary perspective. How do primate species differ from one another? What are the selection pressures that account for the differences? How to explain a vast range of behaviour, social structures and relationships within an evolutionary framework?
2. Primate perspective. How do primates see the world? How do they think about others? Do they have concepts? Are their vocalizations equivalent to words? What is the nature of their relationships?
3. A human perspective. What are the continuities and discontinuities between human and non-human primates? What is it that sets humans apart from other primate species?