Conflict resolution in 5-year-old boys: does postconflict affiliative behaviour have a reconciliatory role?

Abstract

In nonhuman primates, affiliative behaviours, such as social grooming and various forms of body contact, become more frequent after an aggressive interaction. Since such behaviours lead to a decrease in postconflict aggressive behaviour and displacement activities and to increased social tolerance, they have been labelled reconciliatory. We videofilmed sessions of free play in daycare centres in Stockholm and investigated whether affiliative behaviours used by 5-year-old boys in the postconflict period had a similar reconciliatory function. For 219 conflicts in 21h 40min of observation we recorded postconflict affiliative/prosocial, aggressive and displacement behaviours. When affiliative behaviours were shown and accepted by the opponent, aggressive and displacement behaviours decreased and play was promoted. These behaviours thus serve a function similar to reconciliatory behaviour in nonhuman primates and we think it is applicable to call accepted affiliative behaviours in postconflict periods of preschool children reconciliatory. However, conflicts were often polyadic and nonconflict periods consisted of intense play with a rich exchange of affiliative behaviours. These factors were limitations to the postconflict/matched-control method traditionally used in primatological research to document reconciliatory behaviour. We suggest that for preschool children, video recordings and an analysis and description of postconflict affiliative, aggressive and displacement behaviours can be used instead.