One person may value the relationship more than the other person who is engaged in a conflict. Thus, the stakes are higher in the conflict, and one party has more motivation to instigate resolution.
There is also the potential for different levels of post-resolution anxiety to vary between individual to individual. A highly suspicious person may still experience intense anxiety, even after the conflict has been resolved, and continue to feel the heightened sense of awareness that goes along with the physical changes induced by conflict resolution.
Living in a social group presents conflicts of interest but is the result of interests in common. Explain how social interactions can result in positive emotional responses and influence the strength of a social bond. How is physical contact important for maintaining relationships and facilitating conflict resolution?
Anxiety and emotion produce physiological changes, and are communicated by changes in behavior, such as shifts, for example in the pattern of scratching, crouching, or other customary habits in chimps. The anxious behavior of one animal, if observed by other animals, can produce changes in the behavior of other animals. But conflict resolution, and the relaxation of anxious behavior, can produce measurable changes in the behavior of other, observing animals as well.
Furthermore, the existence of a necessary social group, and social bonds, acts as a way of enforcing greater compassion on the part of the individual. The individual has less motivation to engage in peaceful resolution, for example, with a hostile member of the tribe than a person to whom he feels kinship. By touching, transferring positive emotions, and stimulating brain neurotransmitters that promote relaxation and pleasure, as well as demonstrating through mimicry the safety of physical intimacy, a more harmonious society is created through social relationships...
Not surprisingly, Aureli and Smucny argue that emotional responses are general adaptations that evolved for managing the social relationships and do not require advanced intelligence, a large brain, or language. Are human emotions equivalent to those of other primates? Or, are there emotions that are uniquely human? Explain.
Most human emotions seem to have some lineage in the emotions of other primates in the sense that humans share similar chemical responses, physical characteristics, and instincts present in other mammals. The brain neurotransmitter serotonin, for example, is present in chimps as in humans, and a deficit of this can produce anxiety, anger, or depression.
However, even if certain emotions are not uniquely human, it might be fair to say that humanity's advanced intelligence and larger brain enables it to interpret emotions differently. Chimps do not write songs about depression, or create drugs like Prozac to deal with the chemical consequences of depression, for example, nor do they have a systematic approach to dealing with conflict, such as the theory and process of conflict resolution.
Some might say that these higher forms of more complex behavior are the same emotions, chemically speaking. However, they are also differences in behavior. Just as different animals communicate through different behaviors, even though the behaviors may have biological origins, human's larger brains and capacity for thought alters the behaviors emotional responses stimulate within the human organism. Thus human emotions are different and human society is different as a result -- but perhaps in the sense that all species have different behaviors to communicate similar emotional, chemical responses.
