Using the 'F'-word in primatology

Primatologists have recently begun to use the word ‘friendship ’ to de-scribe close, af liative relationships amongmonkeys and apes. This seems to be part of a growing backlash against what some researchers see as a narrow-minded preoccupation with the negative aspects of animal behavior, such as competition, con ict, manipulation, coercion, and deception (e.g. de Waal, 1996). There is a new emphasis on more positive features of animal behav-ior, such as coordination, negotiation, reconciliation, and cooperation, that animals use to mitigate con icts of interest and resolve con icts. In animal species, the formation of af liative social bonds may constitute an impor-tant adaptive strategy (Cheney et al., 1986). This point of view has generated considerable interest in describing social relationships among nonhuman pri-mates in quantitative and qualitative terms; and the term ‘friendship ’ has en-tered the primatological lexicon. Friendship is the F-word; a word that many primatologists have been reluctant to use in print though we may use it freely when we chat with our colleagues about the animals that we study. When we do use the term in academic venues, we feel compelled to cloak it in italics, as if this gives us some indemnity against charges of anthropomorphism or lack of rigor. But lately primatologists have become more relaxed about using the F-word, even dropping the protective italics. The use of ordinary English words, like altruism, kidnapping, reconcili-ation, and rape, to describe behavioral phenomena is a common, but some-times controversial, practice. It is convenient to use these kinds of terms because they are easy to remember and provide a useful shorthand for cate-gorizing behaviors as functional units. However, it is problematic when the