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Non-human Leadership

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Synonyms

Collective action; Flocking; Leading; Swarming

Definitions

Leadership occurs when an individual or subset of individuals within a social group or aggregation has a disproportional influence on the behavioral outcomes of conspecific members within the group regardless of how this effect is achieved.

Introduction

Leadership is ubiquitous within animal societies, occurring when one individual or subset of individuals, the leader(s), exert(s) a disproportional influence on the behaviors of others (followers; Smith et al. 2016). Leaders emerge in non-human groups or aggregations of animals regardless of the how this influence is achieved (Smith et al. 2016). Within non-human animals, most research has focused on collective movements during groups travel (e.g., Reyonds 1987; Boinski and Garber 2000). More recently, the concept of leadership has been extended to also explain collection action within the domains of foraging, conflict resolution and between-group conflicts (Smith et...

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References

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Correspondence to Jennifer E. Smith .

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Smith, J.E. (2017). Non-human Leadership. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2714-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2714-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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