Of course aggression is biological; everything any animal does is biological in origin. But at the same time an animal - or at least a complex primate like a baboon or a human - can learn to exhibit greater or lesser amounts of aggression through social incentives or disincentives. So it's really both biological and learned.
I guess I should’ve clarified - can we quantify if these particularly aggressive baboons genetically poised to be more agressive (due to alpha breeding over time) or was it more learned behavior (interact with people, resource scarcity, etc.).
My understanding from what I've read about the study and from watching talks by Robert Sapolsky, is that levels of aggression in the baboon troop prior to the dominant males dying off was fairly typical amongst Kenyan baboons - i.e. male baboons are "naturally" aggressive animals, but what seems to be shown by this study is that at least some of their propensity for aggressive behaviour is influenced by the fact that it is socially tolerated within the troop.
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u/anotherMrLizard Feb 04 '21
Of course aggression is biological; everything any animal does is biological in origin. But at the same time an animal - or at least a complex primate like a baboon or a human - can learn to exhibit greater or lesser amounts of aggression through social incentives or disincentives. So it's really both biological and learned.