The Evolution of Social Dominance I: Two-player Models

Behaviour ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 140 (10) ◽  
pp. 1305-1332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geerten Hengeveld ◽  
G. Sander Van Doorn ◽  
Franz Weissing

AbstractA difference in dominance rank is an often-used cue to resolve conflicts between two animals without escalated fights. At the group level, adherence to a dominance convention efficiently reduces the costs associated with conflicts, but from an individual's point of view, it is difficult to explain why a low ranking individual should accept its subordinate status. This is especially true if, as suggested by several authors, dominance not necessarily reflects differences in fighting ability but rather results from arbitrary historical asymmetries. According to this idea, rank differentiation emerges from behavioural strategies, referred to as winner and loser effects, in which winners of previous conflicts are more likely to win the current conflict, whereas the losers of previous conflicts are less likely to do so. In order to investigate whether dominance, based on such winner and loser effects, can be evolutionarily stable, we analyse a game theoretical model. The model focuses on an extreme case in which there are no differences in fighting ability between individuals at all. The only asymmetries that may arise between individuals are generated by the outcome of previous conflicts. By means of numerical analysis, we find alternative evolutionarily stable strategies, which all utilize these asymmetries for conventional conflict resolution. One class of these strategies is based on winner and loser effects, thus generating evolutionarily stable dominance relations even in the absence of differences in resource holding potential.

Behaviour ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 140 (10) ◽  
pp. 1333-1358 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Sander Van Doorn ◽  
Franz Weissing ◽  
Geerten Hengeveld

AbstractThe social hierarchies observed in natural systems often show a high degree of transitivity. Transitive hierarchies do not only require rank differentiation within pairs of individuals but also a higher level ordering of relations within the group. Several authors have suggested that the formation of linear hierarchies at the group level is an emergent property of individual behavioural rules, referred to as winner and loser effects. Winner and loser effects occur if winners of previous conflicts are more likely to escalate the current conflict, whereas the losers of previous conflicts are less likely to do so. According to this idea, an individual's position in a hierarchy may not necessarily reflect its fighting ability, but may rather result from arbitrary historical asymmetries, in particular the history of victories and defeats. However, if this is the case, it is difficult to explain from an evolutionary perspective why a low ranking individual should accept its subordinate status. Here we present a game theoretical model to investigate whether winner and loser effects giving rise to transitive hierarchies can evolve and under which conditions they are evolutionarily stable. The main version of the model focuses on an extreme case in which there are no intrinsic differences in fighting ability between individuals. The only asymmetries that may arise between individuals are generated by the outcome of previous conflicts. We show that, at evolutionary equilibrium, these asymmetries can be utilized for conventional conflict resolution. Several evolutionarily stable strategies are based on winner and loser effects and these strategies give rise to transitive hierarchies.


Symmetry ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Frasnelli ◽  
Giorgio Vallortigara

Lateralization, i.e., the different functional roles played by the left and right sides of the brain, is expressed in two main ways: (1) in single individuals, regardless of a common direction (bias) in the population (aka individual-level lateralization); or (2) in single individuals and in the same direction in most of them, so that the population is biased (aka population-level lateralization). Indeed, lateralization often occurs at the population-level, with 60–90% of individuals showing the same direction (right or left) of bias, depending on species and tasks. It is usually maintained that lateralization can increase the brain’s efficiency. However, this may explain individual-level lateralization, but not population-level lateralization, for individual brain efficiency is unrelated to the direction of the asymmetry in other individuals. From a theoretical point of view, a possible explanation for population-level lateralization is that it may reflect an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) that can develop when individually asymmetrical organisms are under specific selective pressures to coordinate their behavior with that of other asymmetrical organisms. This prediction has been sometimes misunderstood as it is equated with the idea that population-level lateralization should only be present in social species. However, population-level asymmetries have been observed in aggressive and mating displays in so-called “solitary” insects, suggesting that engagement in specific inter-individual interactions rather than “sociality” per se may promote population-level lateralization. Here, we clarify that the nature of inter-individuals interaction can generate evolutionarily stable strategies of lateralization at the individual- or population-level, depending on ecological contexts, showing that individual-level and population-level lateralization should be considered as two aspects of the same continuum.


Author(s):  
Anne Power

This article provides a brief overview of emotionally focused couple therapy (EFT) along with some reservations about the method. The article considers questions and critiques which are often raised about the model and does so from the point of view of a practitioner new to the method, who has become convinced of the value of the approach whilst not wanting to jettison an object relations understanding. The segregation between different groups of attachment researchers and practitioners is noted. To provide variation I occasionally use the term "marital" but I do so loosely, referring to a couple bond rather than to a wedded pair. The systemic pattern between a pursuer and a withdrawer which is discussed here could refer to a same-sex or a heterosexual couple, despite the different gender alignments which operate in each case.


Genetics ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 121 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-889
Author(s):  
A B Harper

Abstract The theory of evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) predicts the long-term evolutionary outcome of frequency-dependent selection by making a number of simplifying assumptions about the genetic basis of inheritance. I use a symmetrized multilocus model of quantitative inheritance without mutation to analyze the results of interactions between pairs of related individuals and compare the equilibria to those found by ESS analysis. It is assumed that the fitness changes due to interactions can be approximated by the exponential of a quadratic surface. The major results are the following. (1) The evolutionarily stable phenotypes found by ESS analysis are always equilibria of the model studied here. (2) When relatives interact, one of the two conditions for stability of equilibria differs between the two models; this can be accounted for by positing that the inclusive fitness function for quantitative characters is slightly different from the inclusive fitness function for characters determined by a single locus. (3) The inclusion of environmental variance will in general change the equilibrium phenotype, but the equilibria of ESS analysis are changed to the same extent by environmental variance. (4) A class of genetically polymorphic equilibria occur, which in the present model are always unstable. These results expand the range of conditions under which one can validly predict the evolution of pairwise interactions using ESS analysis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Ahson Azmat

AbstractLeading accounts of tort law split cleanly into two seams. Some trace its foundations to a deontic form of morality; others to an instrumental, policy-oriented system of efficient loss allocation. An increasingly prominent alternative to both seams, Civil Recourse Theory (CRT) resists this binary by arguing that tort comprises a basic legal category, and that its directives constitute reasons for action with robust normative force. Using the familiar question whether tort’s directives are guidance rules or liability rules as a lens, or prism, this essay shows how considerations of practical reasoning undermine one of CRT’s core commitments. If tort directives exert robust normative force, we must account for its grounds—for where it comes from, and why it obtains. CRT tries to do so by co-opting H.L.A. Hart’s notion of the internal point of view, but this leveraging strategy cannot succeed: while the internal point of view sees legal directives as guides to action, tort law merely demands conformity. To be guided by a directive is to comply with it, not conform to it, so tort’s structure blocks the shortcut to normativity CRT attempts to navigate. Given the fine-grained distinctions the theory makes, and with the connection between its claims and tort’s requirements thus severed, CRT faces a dilemma: it’s either unresponsive to tort’s normative grounds, or it’s inattentive to tort’s extensional structure.


Author(s):  
Paul Cliteur

This chapter discusses the difference between a nonsecular or religious critique of religious ethics and politics and a specifically secular critique. It introduces the central notion of a secular critique, autonomy, and its two types, moral and political. Moral autonomy entails the separation of religion from ethics. The ideal of making that separation is called “moral secularism.” The opposite of moral autonomy is “moral heteronomy.” An extreme case of moral heteronomy is discussed: Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son when God commanded him to do so. Next, the importance of political autonomy and political secularism is illustrated with reference to the conflict between the king Ahab (the model of a secular ruler) and the prophet Elijah (the model of a religious leader). Some stories in the holy scriptures of the monotheist religions held in common by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are unfavorable toward secularism (both moral and political).


PMLA ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Lapp
Keyword(s):  

When critics compare an author's early works with those of his maturity, it is usually to emphasize his final achievement. In one extreme case, such a comparison has even been urged as a source of moral uplift for struggling authors. When Charpentier brought out in 1880 a new printing of Zola's first novel, La confession de Claude, a critic advised young writers to read it and take heart, since the fact that the author of Nana could have written anything so abysmally bad twentyyears before proved beyond question that lamentable beginnings did not mean inevitable failure. Too seldom have critical comparisons of this kind gone beyond this demonstrative act, and one might reasonably question their worth when they fail to do so, for after all, if a work is a masterpiece should not that fact be discernible from the work itself?


1980 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 559-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andris Abakuks

It is pointed out that the conditions given by Haigh (1975) for finding evolutionarily stable strategies corresponding to a given matrix are sufficient, but not always necessary. An example is given, and an amended version of the necessary and sufficient conditions is stated.


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