ABSTRACT
During the 20th century, investigators using animal models produced an explosion of knowledge about the neurohormonal system. Touching briefly on the animal background, this history turns to research on human social interaction, which essentially followed three streams: one focused on social stressors, another on face-to-face dominance hierarchies, and a third on affiliation and identity coalitions. The field is now in great flux – some would say chaos. The literature is rife with contradictory findings, the validity of common hormonal measurements is uncertain, and we lack standard paradigms for laboratory studies of dominance and coalition formation.
