Dominance and Aggression

Question 1

“Civilization and its discontents”

• who said this?
• what does it mean?

Answer 1

• Sigmund Freud
• get familiar with your own group
• animals have the need to form ingroups and outgroups
• people resent the leader even if they’re the most popular

Question 2

Solly Zuckerman

• what did he write?
• what did he study?
• what did he conclude?

Answer 2

• studied the importance of dominance hierarchy in baboons
• intrinsic part of group life
• :Social life of monkeys and apes

Question 3

Territoriality

-2 reasons

Answer 3

• males want territory for 2 reasons:
  1) defense of resources
  2) access to mates

Question 4

Dominance

Answer 4

-status is important

Question 5

Relationship between dominance and aggression

Answer 5

• frequency of aggression shoots up when a new male enters the territory of another male
• fighting stops when hierarchy is clarified
• graph of time since group formation and frequency of aggression

Question 6

are dominance and aggression synonymous?

Answer 6

• no

- aggression is a mode of communication

Question 7

Dominance

Answer 7

• relationional construct
• not an attribute of an individual
• you can have dominance without any fighting
• fighting only happens if hierarchy needs to be established

Question 8

Thor Schjelderup

Answer 8

• “pecking order”
• take 2 monkeys, one will be one and one will be 2
• intrinsic disposition

Question 9

why does fighting happen

Answer 9

• space: more space, less fighting
• unfamiliarity
• xenophobia

Question 10

functions of fighting

Answer 10

• space, mates
• resources: food, water
• “priority of access to desired but limited incentives
• want to be alpha when resources are limited because they get first priority

Question 11

ways to measure dominance

Answer 11

• aggression/threats
• symbolic displays - teeth baring
• location/displacement - height in tree
• grooming - alpha gets more grooming
• food and water competition tests - throw banana, see who goes for it first
• sexual activity

Question 12

which are the two worst ways to measure dominance?

Answer 12

• aggression

- sexual activity

Question 13

open mouth threat

Answer 13

• very common

- every primate has a variation of this

Question 14

squirrel monkey - how they show aggression

Answer 14

• genital display

- alpha sticks genitals into face of lesser monkey

Question 15

factors that affect dominance/competition

Answer 15

• increase in mating season
• less receptive females
• limited food/water holes
• shade trees/limited shade

Question 16

complexities in dominance/competition

Answer 16

• dependent rank
• alliances
• winning/losing syndrome
• genetic/hormonal/learned
• rank not always a successful strategy
• reconciliation

Question 17

dependent rank example

Answer 17

• Japanese macaque matriline

- get rank from mother/siblings

Question 18

alliances example

• chimps?
• person who studied this?

Answer 18

• Figan and Faben

- Frank de Waal - Chimp politics

Question 19

winning/losing syndrome

Answer 19

-dominant usually wins

Question 20

genetic/hormonal/learned

Answer 20

• forget to mate

- alpha don’t always reproduce most

Question 21

young males reaching puberty - what happens?

Answer 21

• more charging displays

- something intrinsic

Question 22

Rock, Shadow, Bandit (1,2,3)

Answer 22

• Shadow and Rock kept doing displays (charging)

- 1 yr later, rock and shadow switched, Rock never returned