Dominance and Subordination: Concepts or Physiological States?

Abstract

The concept of dominance and dominance hierarchies has aroused much debate over the last 15 years. Since its adoption by the early primatologists — notably Zuckerman (1932) — from the field of bird social behaviour, dominance came to be considered a fundamental principle underlying all primate behaviour, despite the fact that it was never clearly defined. The subsequent somewhat subjective and careless use of the term to describe some intangible quality possessed by individuals to differing degrees led, perhaps not surprisingly, to a number of criticisms. Thus Gartlan (1964,1968) and Rowell (1967,1974) pointed out apparent contradictions in assessments of status when different indices were used, and also argued that the pronounced aggressive hierarchies seen in caged primates must be laboratory artefacts since little aggression was observed in the same species in the wild. This criticism highlights another problem, namely the frequent confusion between dominance and aggressiveness (see Sect. 2).