Copyright © 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Social dominance refers to situations in which an individual or a group controls or dictates others' behavior primarily in competitive situations. Generally, an individual or group is said to be dominant when "a prediction is being made about the course of future interactions or the outcome of competitive situations" (Rowell 1974: 133). Criteria for assessing and assigning dominance relationships can vary from one situation to another, even for studies of conspecifics (members of the same species), and the burden is on researchers to show that their methods are suitable for the situation at hand (Bekoff 1977; Chase 1980; Lehner 1996). It is difficult to summarize available data succinctly, but generally it has been found that dominant individuals, when compared to subordinate individuals, often have more freedom of movement, have priority of access to food, gain higher-quality resting spots, enjoy favorable grooming relationships, occupy more protected parts of a group, obtain higher quality mates, command and regulate the attention of other group members, and show greater resistance to stress and disease. Despite assertions that suggest otherwise, it really is not clear how robust the relationship is between an individual's dominance status and its lifetime reproductive success (for comparative data see Dewsbury 1982; McFarland 1982; Clutton-Brock 1988; Alcock 1993; Berger and Cunningham 1994; Altmann et al. 1996; Drickamer, Vessey and Meikle 1996; Byers 1997; Frank 1997; Pusey, Williams, and Goodall 1997). There also can be costs associated with dominance such that dominant individuals suffer because of stresses associated with the possibility of being overthrown by more subordinate individuals or because while they are defending their mates subordinates can sneak in and copulate with them (Wilson 1975; Hogstad 1987).
In practice, the concept of social dominance has proven to be ubiquitous but slippery (Rowell 1974; Bernstein 1981). Some researchers have questioned if dominance relationships are actually recognized by the animals themselves or if they are constructed by the human observers. Some also question if dominance hierarchies widely exist in nature or if they are due to the stresses associated with living in captivity (where much research is performed; see, for example, Rowell 1974). Others also feel that a lack of correlation between dominance in different contexts (for example, the possession of food, the acquisition or retention of a mate or a resting place) or in different locations argues against its conceptual utility (but see Hinde 1978). Nonetheless, many who have casually observed or carefully studied various animals agree that social dominance exists in similar forms and serves many of the same functions in widely diverse taxa, ranging from invertebrates to vertebrates including humans, and that dominance relationships among individuals are powerful organizing principles for animal social systems and population dynamics.
Based on, and expanding from, the classical studies of Schjelderup-Ebbe (1922) on dominance hierarchies in chickens, three basic types of hierarchies are usually recognized: (i) linear hierarchies (pecking-orders), usually in groups of fewer than ten individuals in which all paired relationships among individuals are transitive, such that if individual A dominates (>) individual B, and B > C, then A > C (wasps, bumblebees, chaffinches, turkeys, magpies, cows, ponies, coyotes, various nonhuman primates); (ii) nonlinear hierarchies in which there is at least one nontransitive relationship; and (iii) despotisms in which one individual (the alpha) in a group dominates all other individuals among whom dominance relationships are indistinguishable. Many papers concerned with historical aspects of social dominance in animals are reprinted in Schein (1975).
Although there has been little empirical experimental research done on cognitive aspects of, for example, how dominance status is recognized and represented in animals' minds, there are preliminary data that show that some animals have and use knowledge of other individuals' social ranks in their social interactions, and that individuals seem to agree on their ranking of others (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990; de Waal 1996; Tomasello and Call 1997). For example, when adult female vervet monkeys compete for grooming partners in their social group, individuals appear to rank one another and to agree on the rankings of the most preferred grooming partners. The understanding of dominance relationships -- having and using the social knowledge needed for making evaluations and decisions -- might entail constructing ordinal relationships and transitivity concerning the relationships among individuals with whom one has and has not had personal experience (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990; Tomasello and Call 1997), but the phylogenetic distribution of these skills remains to be determined. Certainly, the formation of alliances and coalitions (who to recruit, how to solicit them, who to retaliate against, how and when to intervene, with whom to reciprocate; Tomasello and Call 1997) may involve having and using knowledge of others' social ranks, observing the outcomes of encounters between other individuals, and making deductions using this knowledge in the absence of personal experience. Social knowledge of self and others (in the absence of personal experience) may also be important in reconciliation, but detailed comparative data are scant (de Waal 1988, 1989; Harcourt and de Waal 1992; Silk, Cheney, and Seyfarth 1996).
All in all, insight and foresight (planning) seem to be important skills that are shown by a variety of nonhuman primates and nonprimates in their social encounters, but the comparative database is too small to support any general conclusions about whether individuals really do use insight and planning in their social interactions with others. Thus, broadly comparative and detailed research on the cognitive aspects of social dominance is sorely needed. These efforts will also inform other areas in the cognitive arena, including general questions about whether individuals have a theory of mind -- whether they make attributions about the mental states of others and use this information in their own social encounters.
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Copyright © 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology