Theoretical model of exploitative leadership in collective violence in animal societies

This is a theoretical model of leadership in warfare by exploitative individuals who reap the benefits of conflict while avoiding the costs. In this model we extend the classic hawk-dove model to consider pairwise interactions between groups in which a randomly chosen leader decides whether the group will collectively adopt aggressive or peaceful tactics. We allow for unequal sharing of fitness payoffs among group members such that the leader can obtain either a larger share of the benefits, or pay a reduced share of costs, from fighting compared to their followers. Our model shows that leadership of this kind can explain the evolution of severe collective violence in certain animal societies. Full details about this application can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/7aab999e-cef9-41c2-8400-63f10af798ec

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Metadata Language: English (en)

Character set: utf8

Dataset Reference Date (): 2022-08-31

Identifier: https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/7aab999e-cef9-41c2-8400-63f10af798ec

Identifier: doi: / 10.5285/7aab999e-cef9-41c2-8400-63f10af798ec

Other citation details: Johnstone, R.A., Thompson, F.J., Cant, M.A (2022). Theoretical model of exploitative leadership in collective violence in animal societies. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre 10.5285/7aab999e-cef9-41c2-8400-63f10af798ec

University of Cambridge - Johnstone, R.A.

University of Exeter - Thompson, F.J.

University of Exeter - Cant, M.A

University of Exeter - Thompson, F. J.

NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre

University of Exeter

NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 ()

Habitats and Biotopes

Keywords

Collective violence
Intergroup conflict
Social evolution
Game theory
Aggression

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Other constraints: This resource is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence

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Other constraints: If you reuse this data, you should cite: Johnstone, R.A., Thompson, F.J., Cant, M.A (2022). Theoretical model of exploitative leadership in collective violence in animal societies. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre https://doi.org/10.5285/7aab999e-cef9-41c2-8400-63f10af798ec

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Society

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Dataset Reference Date (): 2010-12-08

Statement: Our model extends the classic hawk-dove model to consider pairwise encounters between groups of size n. In each encounter, an individuals is randomly selected as leader and the rest of the group assigned as followers. The leader decides whether the group collectively adopts either aggressive (hawk) or peaceful (dove) tactics, via their disproportionate influence on group behaviour. Total fitness payoffs to groups are identical to that of individuals in the classic model, except that we also allow for unequal sharing. Each follower’s share of the benefit obtained from fighting is reduced compared to that of their leader, while the leader’s share of any costs incurred is reduced compared to that of a follower. Our model predicts that extreme levels of intergroup aggression will evolve when a subset of group members can initiate conflicts that involve the whole group and when initiators gain a disproportionate benefit (or suffer lower costs) than others. It suggests that destructive warfare can result from the decoupling of leaders from the costs that they incite.

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File identifier: 7aab999e-cef9-41c2-8400-63f10af798ec XML

Metadata Language: English (en)

Character set: ISO/IEC 8859-1 (also known as Latin 1)

Resource type: application

Hierarchy level name: application

Metadata Date: 2022-08-31T11:53:28

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Environmental Information Data Centre

Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg , Lancaster , LA1 4AP , UK

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