In this post, I would like to argue for an extended view of sociality and social interactions.
In wildlife biology, sociality is usually regarded as formation of cooperative and resource-sharing groups within a species.
The most basic social unit is mother-offspring unit.
However, species in which mother raises her offspring alone frequently are not regarded as social and for sociality, at least a pair bond (parents) is needed .
More complex social structures (e.g., wolf packs, lion prides, bat colonies etc.) are necessarily exclusive toward other individuals or other groups of the same species which is why sociality is often associated with territoriality as well as agonistic interactions with non-group members (although, e.g., in bats group membership is flexible).
The most advanced social groups with intrinsic hierarchies and very finely elaborated rituals are supposed to have led to advanced cognition and brain enlargement in the social species.
However, there are puzzling species such as bears which attest to high cognition but that are not considered social.
Bear cognition has been discussed in my other post, Bear-human conflicts – due to habitat homogeneity?
Bears are thought to have evolved large brains and advanced cognitive (e.g., problem solving) skills due to their omnivory that involves a diverse range of object manipulation.
Non-social species are not asocial.
Non-social species do not always avoid conspecifics and they might even be less prone to conflict than social species with their exclusivity.
However, their life strategy does not involve prolonged and extensive cooperation.
Mostly, it is thought that such species acquire their social experience through early interactions with mother and siblings.
For example, in bears this stage of sociality is not short at all (it can be longer than the average or minimum lifespan in some social species) although it involves a limited number of individuals who are genetically related, who share the same habitat and who might have more or less multi-faceted personalities (i.e., the diversity of interactive partners or traits of partners can be low).
Mother brown bears give birth to 1 – 4 cubs (often 2).
They remain together for at least 1 year but, frequently, 2 or even 3 years.
After their bond is severed (usually when the female engages in reproductive activities during spring after emergence from den), the siblings even may remain together for a while (months but more rarely also years) because they do not reach sexual maturity until about 3.5 years of age (and reproductive ambition can be one of the main motivations to assume an independent lifestyle).
Moreover, while females become recruited (breed) earlier (average 5 years of age), males have to compete for mating dominance with other adult males and their first breeding can be delayed until > 5 years (e.g., 9 – 10 years) as they finally reach their full adult size.
Family break-ups have been discussed by, e.g., Dahle, B. et al., 2003.
When the break-up has occurred, the bears still interact with other bears, of course.
Bears are not territorial although they do not tolerate strangers on their home range too close to their own core areas or dens (but females tolerate other females that they are related to, see, e.g., Olejarz, A. et al., 2022).
Due to the overall non-exclusivity of their territories and roaming during the breeding season or during the autumn hyperphagia, brown bears can meet other bears (but females with cubs and yearlings tend to avoid other bears, especially, adult males).
Even playful behaviour has been observed between non-related bears (Clapham, M. & Kitchin J., 2016) and bears are certainly capable of assessing dominance status and resolving tense situations.
Moreover, at least captive bears are capable of establishing friendships with other unrelated bears that are based on extremely tight bonds and an advanced understanding of the other bear’s psychology and life experience including outreach to other bears assisting them to overcome physical and psychological trauma.
The scenes that I have observed in the videos posted by ‘Animals Asia’ sanctuary are suggestive of, indeed, superior social proficiency in bears.
These bears do not have to compete for food or partners, nor they have to defend offspring and they share life histories that might help them identify with one another and understand, take into account and relate to each other’s physical and psychological traumas as well as forgive upsets caused by, e.g., physical pain or disabilities.
These preconditions might facilitate bonding.
However, these bears frequently have never socialized with other bears (having been kept in small cages and an in isolation on bile farms often since a very young age, deprived even from the most basic contact with mother and siblings), they have suffered injuries and mistreatment that can lead to physical pain and anxieties as well as to predisposition of isolating themselves for protective purposes (making it more difficult to be touched by another individual on a physical and emotional level).
I will offer a few examples of what I perceive as advanced and superior interactive behaviour in bears –
1
Moon bear Dawn has been described by ‘Animals Asia’ as the ‘most broken bear they had seen in years’.
Dawn had spent > 20 years of her life in a tiny cage on a bile farm in complete isolation from physical contact with non-threatening subjects or objects, including isolation from natural objects such as grass.
(But she had seen other bears through the bars of the cage although these experiences could not have yielded much comfort and could have added to the trauma because it is even scarier to hear another bear’s discomfort and to know that the same experience is about to befall oneself, as well.)
She had to be rehabilitated in stages (even an enclosure larger than a cage could frighten her initially).
Early on, she spent her time curled up in a ball jumping at all noises and trembling.
It is even hard to imagine what it means for an individual with such trauma to reach the stage where she could begin interacting with other individuals which is necessarily unpredictable and more anxiety-provoking than even handling of inanimate objects.
Still, in about 3 months (!!!) she began playing with her new friend Midnight.
Dawn and Midnight and Twilight had been encaged on the bile farm in proximity to one another so are somewhat familiar with one another and their life histories are similar (encouraging understanding).
If you watched these bears playing without knowledge of their past, you would think those are regular, psychologically healthy bears and you might find it difficult to believe that bears are not social animals that form cooperative groups.
Also, these bears are not related (at least I do not suppose they are).
But from the video it is also very clear that they do not play ‘unawarely’, i.e., they are aware of one another’s presence and they do not attempt to isolate themselves from the interaction through some form of mental detachment.
They exhibit surprising patience (which would have been difficult to develop regarding interactive conditions during 20 years of life in cage) and their play does not escalate to aggression at any point.
(Although I assume that escalation to aggression in social species could be evidential of increased safety and trust rather than heightened tension.)
As Twilight joins Dawn and Midnight in the same month but a few weeks later, Dawn even attempts to take leadership in the group’s interactions.
Dawn does not exhibit any ‘misbehaviour’ that is characteristic to traumatized individuals such as attempting to isolate the third individual.
She is inclusive both of her new and old friend.
The three bears engage in a trio play which is more chaotic and unpredictable (difficult to follow) than duo play but which does not appear to overwhelm the bears.
While Midnight is less active, she does not seem scared or self-isolating as she frequently demonstrates ‘welcoming’ postures and gestures.
I find it astounding that these bears have reached such level of interaction and that they have overcome their traumatic past to such degree during the relatively short amount of time (remembering that some vocalizations by these former bile farm neighbours might even trigger bad memories which does not appear to happen at all).
2
I wished to post here a video I remember having watched from the ‘Animals Asia’ collection.
In this video, one bear assisted another bear’s recovery through patience and gentle persistence.
Unfortunately, I had not memorized the bear’s name and that aggravates the search greatly.
If I find it at a later time or if a new video of similar content is posted, I will try to remember to add it here.
***
The ability by these highly traumatized bears to connect and to even encourage one another points at inherited mechanisms that facilitate socialization in bears regardless of actual experience during the individual’s personal history.
Bears have not evolved specifically to socialize in a cooperative, friendly manner (although recognition of ‘the other’ is also important in competitive or otherwise aggressive contexts).
The greatest benefit of understanding the other comes from recognizing dominance hierarchies and avoiding dangerous interactions with other bears (although play between siblings is also highly important and has early survival value; see Fagen, R. & Fagen, J., 2004).
Due to the lack of social experience of any nature in the aforediscussed bears, I believe that such strong mechanisms that are apparently inherited and that persist even despite asocial conditions and highly traumatic experiences must have been trained into the brains and neural pathways otherwise (through other adaptive behaviours that are predominant in the bear’s daily routines and that have the most crucial survival value).
These are the reasons why I have arrived to a conclusion that bears must have developed advanced social (and cognitive) skills without establishing complex societies and having had limited exposure to diverse social interactions in their lifetime.
I believe that bears have been enabled to demonstrate superior understanding of other bears through object manipulation where interaction with objects has replaced cognitive, behavioural and emotional exercises that are needed in successful social interactions (bonding, cooperation, gaining trust, evaluating the other’s disposition and needs but also evaluating threat level etc.).
Firstly, our brain is multifunctional and so are the brains of other complex species.
We have not allocated one brain centre and one neural pathway to one activity or one state.
Our brains multitask and many functions have been clustered within the same brain centre.
Otherwise to be able to perform the tasks that we do perform, our brain would need to be massive if it stored singular capacities in separate departments.
Therefore, I think that when we develop certain brain functions or neural pathways that coincide with a diverse range of states or activities, these adaptations translate also into the non-targeted cognitive functions.
For example, while we tend to regard objects as inanimate means to our purpose, this has been a view held relatively recently in the human culture and it is mainly characteristic to the western cultures (e.g., European culture and its inheritance).
More ancient beliefs as well as beliefs in various religions (but especially in magic) refer to animism that assign self-will, intent, attitudes, benevolence or malevolence (guardianship etc.), powers of song and speech and other attributes of living beings to plants (that we also consider living organisms in biology) and to other objects (soil, musical instruments, stones etc.).
From this point of view, interaction with inanimate objects is not necessarily non-social (with respect to cognitive and behavioural potential).
It is not even that difficult to imagine.
For example, when we handle specific types of objects, they provoke specific types of emotional responses and they demand to be understood and manipulated accordingly.
Some objects can irritate us asking to practice patience.
Others require our strength and determination (certain forcefulness).
There are objects that we are very eager to acquire and they can teach us to motivate ourselves or to learn the benefits of delayed-gratification.
The object itself has qualities that need to be assessed (just like we assess individuals and personalities as well as their life histories) in order to manipulate it properly to our purpose and to avoid danger (e.g. injury).
In order to achieve this manipulation, we must face our own inner states and to govern them or to awaken other inner states that are necessary to successfully handle the specific object and the task it poses.
This is not very unlike how we interact with partners (I am using the term in the broader sense of two collaborators although not all interactions with inanimate objects are apparently beneficial for both of the involved parties or imply active involvement on behalf of both parties (to our understanding) which is why, according to biology, this would not be defined as social interaction because it is not clearly cooperative).
I think that bears partly treat one another as objects until it leads to identification with the other and bonding.
But, unlike what we would observe in the human world where objects do not have a self-value, nor they have an inner life, nor we consider them in any way ‘responsive’, this treatment in bears is based on a thorough understanding how the other should be ‘handled’ and also, how to ‘handle’ the reactions (emotional and physical) that arise from the interaction.
Bears might initially approach one another as they would a task, a puzzle, a novel or semi-novel object that needs to be manipulated to their benefit.
It is interesting to consider what this benefit would be.
I believe it involves the bear’s own internal states rather than the necessity to bond.
That is to say, these traumatized, isolated bears who have not had any means to explore, to develop their skills and to, fundamentally, find out who they are (through interaction with the world that provokes them or reflects them), might use objects and other bears to self-heal through learning about their own identity.
Playmates might be more challenging (next-level skills) than play objects but in traumatized bears, playmates might be chosen precisely because the intensity in the interaction is needed to penetrate numbness caused by isolation and trauma.
This in no way denounces the friendship value among the bears.
The initial motivation might appear ‘selfish’ to us but this is not unlike situations where have acquired some object for practical or educational purposes and later we grieve parting from it and we become emotionally attached to it to the point we would describe the object as our friend or family (e.g., a toy).
If bears who have advanced their cognition through object manipulation, have thereby also improved their social skills and their social potential, this could have major consequences in human (and other species) psychiatry, as well.
Individuals who suffer social anxieties could play with objects in a safe environment (without exposing themselves to excessive amounts of anxiety-inducing social interactions and situations) ensuring better success in the future social contexts when they feel ready to partake in them.
Object manipulation methods could be used to treat individuals with potentially harmful antisocial personality disorders where social interactions cannot be allowed due to the threat they pose to partners in these interactions.
By and by, there is hardly a human being who would not benefit from improved social skills or greater confidence gained through exercising our social potential safely and playfully.
Interestingly, I also believe that object manipulation may lead to increased sociality in a species over time but that it is not necessarily so and that the species can be content with the interactions with abiotic elements or plants not feeling a need to form other types of what I choose to call attachments and engagements (see my former post, Could there be a minimum threshold and a maximum threshold to the need by animal species to interact with others?).
I also think that the concept of sociality should be extended both within intraspecific and to interspecific context, including competitors or enemies, but I will discuss this issue in another post.
Notes by Ieva 