New Scientist Why don't we just kiss and make up? - Features

New Scientist Why don't we just kiss and make up? - Features: "LOOK at the world's worst trouble spots and you can't fail to notice they have one thing in common: tit-for-tat attacks between warring parties. Escalation of violence is incredibly destructive, yet we humans find it very difficult to break the vicious cycle. It seems we are not good at conflict resolution. Perhaps we could learn a lesson or two from the spotted hyena.
Spotted hyenas are highly sociable. Like other animals that live in close-knit groups, they don't always get along. But spotted hyenas don't hold a grudge. Within about 5 minutes of a fight, the erstwhile combatants can often be seen playing, licking or rubbing one another, or engaging in other friendly acts to dissipate the tension. And they are not the only animals with a penchant for kissing and making up. In their book Natural Conflict Resolution, Filippo Aureli from Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and Frans de Waal from the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, document reconciliation in no less than 27 species of primates. Bottlenose dolphins also do it. Even goats. So why can't we be more forgiving?"