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Comparative rates of violence in chimpanzees and humans

Overview of attention for article published in Primates, August 2005
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (83rd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
2 news outlets
policy
1 policy source
twitter
1 X user

Citations

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248 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
302 Mendeley
Title
Comparative rates of violence in chimpanzees and humans
Published in
Primates, August 2005
DOI 10.1007/s10329-005-0140-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Richard W. Wrangham, Michael L. Wilson, Martin N. Muller

Abstract

This paper tests the proposal that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and humans have similar rates of death from intraspecific aggression, whereas chimpanzees have higher rates of non-lethal physical attack (Boehm 1999, Hierarchy in the forest: the evolution of egalitarian behavior. Harvard University Press). First, we assembled data on lethal aggression from long-term studies of nine communities of chimpanzees living in five populations. We calculated rates of death from intraspecific aggression both within and between communities. Variation among communities in mortality rates from aggression was high, and rates of death from intercommunity and intracommunity aggression were not correlated. Estimates for average rates of lethal violence for chimpanzees proved to be similar to average rates for subsistence societies of hunter-gatherers and farmers. Second, we compared rates of non-lethal physical aggression for two populations of chimpanzees and one population of recently settled hunter-gatherers. Chimpanzees had rates of aggression between two and three orders of magnitude higher than humans. These preliminary data support Boehm's hypothesis.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 302 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 6 2%
Brazil 4 1%
Canada 3 <1%
United Kingdom 3 <1%
Germany 1 <1%
Belgium 1 <1%
Switzerland 1 <1%
Unknown 283 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 67 22%
Student > Master 51 17%
Researcher 43 14%
Student > Bachelor 31 10%
Professor 22 7%
Other 60 20%
Unknown 28 9%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 109 36%
Psychology 39 13%
Social Sciences 37 12%
Environmental Science 24 8%
Arts and Humanities 12 4%
Other 40 13%
Unknown 41 14%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 24. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 April 2022.
All research outputs
#1,463,836
of 24,046,191 outputs
Outputs from Primates
#105
of 1,041 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#2,016
of 59,623 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Primates
#2
of 6 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,046,191 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,041 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 19.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 59,623 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 6 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 4 of them.