ABSTRACT
Dominance relationships are an important feature of primate and human societies. The pattern of social relationships in multi-male, multi-female primate groups is characterized by co-operative and competitive dynamics. ‘Dominance’, in this context, is a term denoting an attribute of dyadic relationships within a social group. When, in repeated agonistic interactions, one individual is consistently the winner and the other consistently yields rather than escalate the contest, then the winning individual is the dominant and the other is the subordinate (Drews 1993). Although this definition relates to dyadic interactions, it does not preclude recognition of the effects of support from other individuals on the outcome of the contest, as in coalitional behaviour. Furthermore, not all dyadic interactions demonstrate a dominance relationship: some will be unresolved or balanced in nature. Finally, whereas dominance status is a relational attribute of individuals with respect to specific dyadic relationships, observer attribution of dominance rank is the product of a calculation of the dominance hierarchy within a group on the basis of observed dyadic contest outcomes. It is possible for dominance statuses to exist in a group without there being a single ordinally ranked dominance hierarchy.
