Emory primatologist Frans de Waal remembered for bringing apes ‘a little closer to humans’

Breaking taboos

George Romanes, a protégé of Charles Darwin, tried to connect ideas of animal consciousness and human consciousness in the late 1800s, but his theories were dismissed as anecdotal and anthropomorphic.

For nearly 100 years, the subject of the social mind of animals remained largely taboo in the scientific community. Finally, in 1976, neuroscientist Donald Griffin published his first edition of “The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience.” That book compiled observations suggesting animals might have thoughts worthy of exploring and that it was possible to do so in a scientifically objective way.

“Donald Griffin opened the door just a little bit and then Frans pushed it wide open. The rest is history,” says Harold Gouzoules, an Emory professor of psychology who studies primate social behavior and vocal communication.

Frans de Waal as a young scholar

De Waal wrote hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific articles comparing primate and human behavior. He demonstrated the roots of human nature in our closest living relatives through his studies of conflict resolution, reconciliation, cooperation, empathy, fairness, morality, social learning and culture in chimpanzees, bonobos and capuchin monkeys.

A prolific writer and editor, his impact reached far beyond academia through his articles for major magazines and newspapers and his 16 popular books that have been translated into 20 languages. He was a gifted speaker who wove deadpan humor into his many public talks — usually filled to capacity — about his research. His TED Talks have been viewed millions of times.

Animal reconciliation

Franciscus Bernardus Maria “Frans” de Waal was born in 1948 in s’Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, where he trained as a zoologist and ethologist at three universities — Nijmegen, Groningen and Utrecht. In 1977 he received a PhD in biology from the University of Utrecht where Jan van Hooff, a Dutch biologist renowned for his research involving primates, was his mentor.

Frans de Waal as a young boy

For his dissertation, de Waal began working with the colony of chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands. That work led to his first major discovery: chimpanzees make up after fights.

“I discovered that by just seeing how the opponents would come together after fights and kiss and embrace,” de Waal later said. “I never had trouble getting primatologists interested or convincing them, but other scientists were often skeptical. This meant conducting experiments and collecting data to convince them.”

Instead of describing the behavior he observed using a clinical term, such as “post-fight, affiliative contact,” de Waal called it reconciliation — a word, up until then, reserved for humans. This research became the basis of his book “Chimpanzee Politics,” which compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians.

“There really was no history of someone studying something as complex as reconciliation in animals,” says Kim Wallen, who recently retired as an Emory professor of psychology. “Frans faced a lot of challenges because he looked at questions that were outside the mainstream of animal behavior research. He persisted and carved out an area of his own.”

In 1981 de Waal moved to the United States to join the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

Wallen, who studied sex-related behaviors in humans and non-humans, recruited de Waal to join Emory in 1991. “His reputation preceded him,” Wallen recalls. “It was a big coup for Emory.”

Making the most of every minute

In addition to his extreme productivity as a scientist, teacher and communicator, de Waal was a social animal, especially when it came to his students.

“I think Frans came across sometimes as reserved but he wasn’t like that once you got to know him,” Brosnan says. “He was so much fun. He would hold what he called ‘simian soirees’ at his house where graduate students would gather to talk. He was a fantastic piano player and he would play for us.”

De Waal retired from Emory in 2019 but remained active. He was in demand internationally and traveled widely, attending conferences and giving public talks. “The number of talks he would give in a year was always off-the-charts impressive,” Gouzoules said. “It was almost like a rock star touring around.”

De Waal also continued writing, publishing “Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist” in 2022. In 2023, he made an appearance in New York for a public discussion with film icon Isabella Rossellini about the book, and what we may learn about sex and gender from primate studies.

Frans de Waal speaking at the Phil.Cologne international festival for philosophy in Germany in June 2023. (Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via AP)

De Waal made his home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where he lived with his wife of more than 40 years, Catherine Marin. The couple also maintained an apartment in the Netherlands where he had an affiliation with the University of Utrecht.

De Waal was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion In 2010 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2004. Among his many awards are the E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award (2020), the Galileo Prize (2014), the Ig Nobel Prize (2012), Discover magazine’s “47 All-time Great Minds of Science” (2011), Time magazine’s 100 world’s most influential people (2007), the American Psychological Foundation Arthur W. Staats Award (2005) and the Los Angeles Times Book Award for “Peacemaking Among Primates” (1989).