Abstract
Deception and hiding are described for a group of captive lowland gorillas comprising two adult males, one female, and her infant. The males repeatedly interacted with the infant, and their interest was repeatedly thwarted by the mother. As in other social situations in which one animal controls access to an object desired by another, deceit was used to thwart the other's control. Either one or both males at times concealed their actions toward the infant, inhibited their attention to the infant, created a neutral image to get the infant, or interacted with the infant to tease the mother.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Chevalier-Skolnikoff, S., 1986. An exploration of the ontogeny of deception in human beings and nonhuman primates. In:Deception: Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit,R. W. Mitchell &N. S. Thompson (eds.), SUNY Press, Albany, pp. 205–220.
Gallup, G. G., Jr., 1988. Toward a taxonomy of mind in primates.Behav. Brain Sci., 11: 255–256.
Goodall, J., 1986.The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge.
Haraway, D., 1989.Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science, Routledge, New York.
Humphrey, N., 1988. Lies, damned lies and anecdotal evidence.Behav. Brain Sci., 11: 257–258.
Mitchell, R. W., 1986. A framework for discussing deception. In:Deception: Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit,R. W. Mitchell &N. S. Thompson (eds.), SUNY Press, Albany, pp. 3–40.
————, 1988. Ontogeny, biography, and evidence for tactical deception.Behav. Brain Sci., 11: 259–260.
————, 1989. Functions and social consequences of infant-adult male interaction in a captive group of lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla).Zoo Biol., 8: 125–137.
————, 1990. Deception in captive lowland gorillas.Amer. J. Primatol., 20: 214.
————, 1991. Bateson's concept of “metacommunication” in play.New Ideas Psychol., 9: 73–87.
----, in press. Animals as liars: The human face of nonhuman duplicity. In:Deception in Everyday Life,M. Lewis & C. Saarni (eds.), Guilford Press, New York.
———— &N. S. Thompson (eds.), 1986.Deception: Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit, SUNY Press, Albany.
Morgan, C. L., 1894.An Introduction to Comparative Psychology. Walter Scott, London.
Quiatt, D., 1985. Devious intentions of monkeys and apes? In:The Meaning of Primate Signals,R. Harré &V. Reynolds (eds.), Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, pp. 9–40.
Russow, L.-M., 1986. Deception: A philosophical perspective. In:Deception: Perspectives on Human and Nonhuman Deceit,R. W. Mitchell &N. S. Thompson (eds.), SUNY Press, Albany, pp. 41–51.
Smith, E. O., 1987. Deception and evolutionary biology.Cult. Anthropol., 2: 50–64.
Torii, M., 1975. Possession by non-human primates. In:Contemporary Primatology,S. Kondo,M. Kawai, &A. Ehara (eds.), Karger, Basel, pp. 310–314.
Whiten, A. &R. W. Byrne, 1988. Tactical deception in primates.Behav. Brain Sci., 11: 233–244.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
About this article
Cite this article
Mitchell, R.W. Deception and hiding in captive lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). Primates 32, 523–527 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02381943
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02381943