Individual differences versus social dynamics in the formation of animal dominance hierarchies
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
The results suggest that dominance hierarchy formation is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than previously thought and the implications for evolutionary biology, the social sciences, and the use of animal models in understanding human social organization are explored.Abstract:
Linear hierarchies, the classical pecking-order structures, are formed readily in both nature and the laboratory in a great range of species including humans. However, the probability of getting linear structures by chance alone is quite low. In this paper we investigate the two hypotheses that are proposed most often to explain linear hierarchies: they are predetermined by differences in the attributes of animals, or they are produced by the dynamics of social interaction, i.e., they are self-organizing. We evaluate these hypotheses using cichlid fish as model animals, and although differences in attributes play a significant part, we find that social interaction is necessary for high proportions of groups with linear hierarchies. Our results suggest that dominance hierarchy formation is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than previously thought, and we explore the implications of these results for evolutionary biology, the social sciences, and the use of animal models in understanding human social organization.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Statistical physics of social dynamics
TL;DR: In this article, a wide list of topics ranging from opinion and cultural and language dynamics to crowd behavior, hierarchy formation, human dynamics, and social spreading are reviewed and connections between these problems and other, more traditional, topics of statistical physics are highlighted.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social Status and Health in Humans and Other Animals
TL;DR: It is argued that socioeconomic status (SES) is the nearest human approximation to social rank and that SES dramatically influences health, as well as the varieties of hierarchical systems in animals.
Journal ArticleDOI
Modulation of aggressive behaviour by fighting experience: mechanisms and contest outcomes.
TL;DR: The voluminous, but somewhat disconnected, literature on the neuroendocrine mechanisms that mediate experience effects is reviewed, providing a comprehensive view of how these mechanisms are integrated into overt behaviour.
Journal ArticleDOI
Revisiting the Foundations of Network Analysis
TL;DR: This paper presents a meta-modelling framework that automates the very labor-intensive and therefore time-heavy and expensive process of manually cataloging and cataloging the connections between neurons in a network.
Journal ArticleDOI
Fish can infer social rank by observation alone.
TL;DR: It is shown that male fish (Astatotilapia burtoni) can successfully make inferences on a hierarchy implied by pairwise fights between rival males, and that a universal mechanism underlying TI is unlikely.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The concept and definition of dominance in animal behaviour.
TL;DR: The concept of dominance has contributed greatly to our understanding of social structure in animals as discussed by the authors, leading to an ongoing debate about the usefulness and meaning of the concept, and several definitions of dominance have been introduced.
Journal ArticleDOI
Maternal dominance, breeding success and birth sex ratios in red deer.
TL;DR: It is shown that, in polygynous red deer (Cervus elaphus), dominant mothers produce significantly more sons than subordinates and that maternal rank has a greater effect on the breeding success of males than females.
Journal ArticleDOI
On dominance relations and the structure of animal societies: I. Effect of inherent characteristics
TL;DR: In this paper, the dominance probability of a peck-right in a flock of domestic hens is analyzed in the presence of social factors, such as the previous history of dominance, which are not included in the present treatment.