Consensus decision making in animals
Open accessAbstract
Individual animals routinely face decisions that are crucial to their fitness. In social species, however, many of these decisions need to be made jointly with other group members because the group will split apart unless a consensus is reached. Here, we review empirical and theoretical studies of consensus decision making, and place them in a coherent framework. In particular, we classify consensus decisions according to the degree to which they involve conflict of interest between group members, and whether they involve either local or global communication; we ask, for different categories of consensus decision, who makes the decision, what are the underlying mechanisms, and what are the functional consequences. We conclude that consensus decision making is common in non-human animals, and that cooperation between group members in the decision-making process is likely to be the norm, even when the decision involves significant conflict of interest.
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In social animals, one function of vocal signaling is to maintain group cohesion by coordinating movements and departure.
“In social animals, one of the functions of vocal signaling is to maintain group cohesion by coordinating movements and departure [1-6]”
From Rules of departure: Antiphony and personalized vocal spaces in wild male elephant group coordination (2024) · cites this paper as [6]
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The Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) System: The Energy Internet
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Rules of departure: Antiphony and personalized vocal spaces in wild male elephant group coordination
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“In social animals, one of the functions of vocal signaling is to maintain group cohesion by coordinating movements and departure [1–6], thus facilitating the benefits of group-living and preventing individuals from becoming unintentionally separated from their collective safety net.”
Background
- Authors
- Conradt, L., & Roper, T. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Conradt, Larissa
- Venue
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2005-08
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 449-456
- ISSN
- 0169-5347 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2119382550
- Cited by
- 872
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 40 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 51 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 63 · 2015: 48 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 66 · 2012: 73
- FWCI
- 3.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- Locations
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems
- Keywords
- consensus building, animal social behavior, group decision making, conflicts of interest, local communication, global communication, cooperation, animal cognition
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