Competition, cooperation and dominance hierarchy in group-living animals

In this talk, I aim to provide a short overview of what we currently know (or don’t know) about the causes and consequences of inter-individual, intra- and inter-specific differences in social behaviour in group-living animals, with a special focus on primates, the group of animals that includes humans, other apes, monkeys and lemurs. I will first focus on the evolutionary and socio-ecological drivers of competition and cooperation, and on why/how dominance hierarchies emerge in social groups. In this part of my talk, I will link animal research to the first two parts of La Boétie’s study. I will then address La Boétie’s third part of his study, from the point of view of evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology. I will discuss when and why “revolutionary aggression” is observed in animal societies and what forces prevent its occurrence. Finally, I will discuss similarities and differences between non-human animal societies and human pre-state and state-level societies.