De Waal studied at the Dutch universities of Nijmegen, Groningen, and Utrecht. In 1977, De Waal received his doctorate in biology from Utrecht University after training as a zoologist and ethologist. His dissertation research concerned aggressive behavior and alliance formation in macaques.

In 1975, De Waal began a six-year project on the world's largest captive colony of chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo. The study resulted in many scientific papers, and resulted in publication of his first book, Chimpanzee Politics, in 1982.

In 1981, he moved to the United States for a position at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, and took his current position at Emory and the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in 1991.

His research into the innate capacity for empathy among primates has led De Waal to the conclusion that non-human great apes and humans are simply different types of apes, and that empathic and cooperative tendencies are continuous between these species. This is quite opposite to the view of some economists and anthropologists, but recent experiments on prosocial tendencies in apes and monkeys support de Waal's position.

His book Our Inner Ape examines human behavior through the eyes of a primatologist, using the behavior of common chimpanzees and bonobos as metaphors for human psychology. He also writes a column for Psychologie, a popular Dutch monthly magazine.

The contributions of de Waal to primatology started with Chimpanzee Politics (1982), which offered the first description of primate behavior explicitly in terms of planned social strategies, thus introducing Machiavelli to primatology, leading to the label "Machiavellian Intelligence" that later became associated with it. In his writings, de Waal has never shied away from attributing emotions and intentions to his primates, and as such his work inspired the field of primate cognition that, three decades later, flourishes around themes of cooperation, altruism, and fairness. His early work also drew attention to deception and conflict resolution, nowadays two major areas of research. Initially, all of this was highly controversial. Thus, the label of "reconciliation" which de Waal introduced for reunions after fights was questioned at first, but is now fully accepted with respect to animal behavior. Recently, de Waal's work has emphasized animal empathy and even the origins of morality. His most widely cited scientific paper, written with his former student Stephanie Preston, concerns the evolutionary origin and neuroscience of empathy. De Waal's name is, of course, also associated with the Bonobo, the "make love - not war" primate that he has made popular. But even his Bonobo studies are secondary to the larger goal of understanding what binds primate societies together rather than how competition structures them, even though the latter is never ignored in his work (the original focus of de Waal's research, before he was well known, was aggressive behavior and social dominance). Whereas his science focuses on the behavior of nonhuman primates (mostly chimpanzees, bonobos, macaques, and capuchin monkeys), his popular books have given de Waal worldwide visibility by relating the insights he has gained from monkey and ape behavior to human society. De Waal strongly believes in mental continuity between humans and their fellow primates, as in the following quote from The Age of Empathy:

“We start out postulating sharp boundaries, such as between humans and apes, or between apes and monkeys, but are in fact dealing with sand castles that lose much of their structure when the sea of knowledge washes over them. They turn into hills, leveled ever more, until we are back to where evolutionary theory always leads us: a gently sloping beach.”

"The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures."

"I've argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species. In chimpanzees and other animals, you see examples of sympathy, empathy, reciprocity, a willingness to follow social rules. Dogs are a good example of a species that have and obey social rules; that's why we like them so much, even though they're large carnivores."

"To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us."

Awards

• 2010 Order of the Netherlands' Lion (knighted).
• 2009 Medal, Società di Medicina & Scienze Naturali, Parma (Italy)
• 2009 Medal, Ariëns Kappers (Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience)
• 2009 Doctor Honoris Causa, University for Humanistics (Netherlands)
• 2008 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
• 2007 Time Magazine 100 World’s Most Influential People Today
• 2005 Member of the American Philosophical Society
• 2005 Arthur W. Staats Award, American Psychological Foundation
• 2004 Member of the (US) National Academy of Sciences
• 1993 Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences
• 1989 Los Angeles Times Book Award for "Peacemaking among Primates"

Books

• " The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society", 2009. ISBN 978-0307407764 (reviewed in American Scientist)
• Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, 2006. ISBN 0-691-12447-7
• Our Inner Ape. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005. ISBN 1-57322-312-3
• Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies, Edited with Peter L. Tyack. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-674-00929-0.
• My Family Album, Thirty Years of Primate Photography 2003.
• Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution, Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-674-00460-4.
• The Ape and the Sushi Master, Cultural reflections by a primatologist. New York: Basic Books, 2001. ISBN 0-465-04175-2
• Power and Sex among Apes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8018-6336-8.
• Natural Conflict Resolution. 2000 (with Filippo Aureli)
• The Forgotten Ape. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. ISBN 0-520-20535-9 (with Frans Lanting)
• Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-674-35660-8
• Chimpanzee Cultures, Edited with Richard Wrangham, W.C. McGrew, and Paul Heltne. Foreword by Jane Goodall. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-674-11662-3.
• Peacemaking Among Primates. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-674-65920-1
• Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Jonathan Cape, London 1982. ISBN 0-224-01874-4.

Articles

• 2010 "Towards a bottom-up perspective on animal and human cognition", Trends in Cognitive Sciences 201-207. May 2010
• 2009, "Darwin's last laugh", Essay, Nature 460, 175 (9 July 2009)
• 2008 "Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy", Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 59: 279-300
• 2007, "Bonobos, Left & Right" Skeptic, (8 August 2007).
• 2006, "Self-recognition in an Asian elephant", PNAS, vol 103, no 45, 17053-17057
• 2001, "Do Humans Alone 'Feel Your Pain'?" ( Chronicle.com, October 26, 2001)
• 1999, "The End of Nature Versus Nurture", Scientific American, vol 281, no 6, p 94-99
• 1997, "Are We in Anthropodenial?", Discover, pp. 50—53. July 1997.
• 1995, " Bonobo Sex and Society The behavior of a close relative challenges assumptions about male supremacy in human evolution", Scientific American, vol 272, no 3, p 82-88