ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses a symposium sponsored by the Program for Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It describes proximate behavioral mechanisms that provide underpinnings to sociality. The book also discusses the normal context of many aggressive behaviors and a number of ways individuals control aggression in social groups. It deals with hormonal, neurological, and genetic factors related to sociality and its evolution. The book examines how dispersal and resident patterns directly affect the opportunity for, and patterns of, interactions among nonkin and different categories of biological kin in various nonhuman primate species. It explores the wide degree of variability in what is considered postconflict behavior, especially behavior considered reconciliation. The book suggests that modern human behavioral characteristics are founded upon the basic higher primate qualities already possessed by the common homi-noid ancestor.
