Lectures at Sheridan College

Thickman Faculty Lecture Series

When the Claws Come Out: What Animals Teach Us About Conflict Resolution

Thursday, Feb. 12, 6:00 pm – Whitney Academic Center #153. Free.

With Rachel Kristiansen, Psychology Faculty

• Discover how animals resolve conflict and maintain social harmony
• Explore the science behind cooperation, empathy, and reconcilliation
• Gain fresh insights into what human relationships can learn from the animal world.

Conflict is a universal feature of social life, but how it’s managed can mean the difference between survival and extinction. From elephants reconciling after fights to vampire bats sharing meals with former rivals, the animal kingdom offers remarkable strategies for restoring peace and maintaining group harmony. This lecture explores the psychology and biology of conflict resolution across species, highlighting parallels with human behavior and insights into the evolutionary roots of cooperation, empathy, and social repair. Drawing from ethology, neuroscience, and behavioral psychology, we’ll examine how animals negotiate disputes, employ reconciliation rituals, and balance aggression with affiliation. Ultimately, these behaviors reveal what it means to coexist in complex social systems, and what humans might learn from our nonhuman counterparts about the art of making peace.

Biography:

Dr. Rachel Kristiansen, a Sheridan native, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Sheridan College. She received her PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2011. During her graduate career, she studied various species of dolphins and whales in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic Ocean, and Pacific Ocean, and served as a research assistant in several projects with small primates. Her doctoral dissertation examined a factorial analysis of equine personality in horses across the globe. Publications of her research may be found in peer-reviewed journals such as Zoo Biology, the International Journal of Comparative Psychology, and the Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior and Cognition. In 2017, she completed a second Master’s degree in Veterinary Sciences with a focus on animal shelter medicine from the University of Florida, as well as a graduate certificate in nonprofit leadership. She currently serves as the Executive Director for Second Chance Sheridan Cat Rescue.