Social competence: an evolutionary approach
Open accessAbstract
'Social competence' refers to the ability of an individual to optimise its social behaviour depending on available social information. Although such ability will enhance social interactions and thus raise Darwinian fitness, its evolutionary and ecological significance has been largely ignored. Social competence is based on behavioural flexibility. We propose that the study of social competence requires an integrative approach that aims to understand how the brain translates social information into flexible behavioural responses, how flexibility might be constrained by the developmental history of an individual or by trade-offs with other (ecological) competences, and how social plasticity feeds back on fitness. Finally we propose a hypothesis of how social competence can become a driver of social evolution.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Individuals can ascend and descend in social status due to multiple factors including alternative reproductive tactics, seasonal changes, onset of migratory behavior, or changes in the social or ecological environment.
“Individuals can ascend and descend in social status due to multiple factors including alternative reproductive tactics [65], seasonal changes [66], onset of migratory behavior [67,68] or changes in the social or ecological environment.”
From Rapid changes in plasma corticosterone and medial amygdala transcriptome profiles during social status change reveal molecular pathways associated with a major life history transition in mouse dominance hierarchies (2025) · cites this paper as [65]
The citation is attached to the onset of migratory behavior, but no passage in our copy links migration to a rise or fall in social status. Searches for migration and migratory behavior returned passages about dominance, dispersal, and social plasticity (Opinion; Box 1), not the claimed link. (LLM, conf=0.74)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Baron‐Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y., & Plumb, I. (2001) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/1469-7610.00715 · Cited by 4,555 · see citing works
Social intelligence, innovation, and enhanced brain size in primates
Reader, S. M., & Laland, K. N. (2002) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.062041299 · Cited by 1,126 · see citing works
A dynamical model of general intelligence: The positive manifold of intelligence by mutualism.
Van Der Maas, H. L. J., Dolan, C. V., Grasman, R. P. P. P., Wicherts, J. M., Huizenga, H. M., & Raijmakers, M. E. J. (2006) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.113.4.842 · Cited by 1,006 · see citing works
Brains, Innovations and Evolution in Birds and Primates
Lefebvre, L., Reader, S. M., & Sol, D. (2004) · Brain, Behavior and Evolution · doi:10.1159/000076784 · Cited by 666 · see citing works
The evolution of primate general and cultural intelligence
Reader, S. M., Hager, Y., & Laland, K. N. (2011) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0342 · Cited by 496 · see citing works
Branchi, I., D’Andrea, I., Fiore, M., Di Fausto, V., Aloe, L., & Alleva, E. (2006) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.01.005 · Cited by 227 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 16
- Shettleworth, S.J. (1998) Cognition, Evolution and Behavior, Oxford University Press
- Brosnan, S.F. et al. (2010) The interplay of cognition and cooperation. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 365, 2699-2710
- Dodge, K. (1985) Facets of social interaction and the assessment of social competence in children. In Children's Peer Relations: Issues in Assessment and Intervention (Schneider, B. et al., eds), pp. 3-22, Springer 19
- Rose-Krasnor, L. (1997) The nature of social competence: A theoretical review. Soc. Dev. 6, 111-135
- Oliveira, R.F. et al. (1998) Know thine enemy: fighting fish gather information from observing conspecific interactions. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 265, 1045-1049
- Earley, R.L. (2010) Social eavesdropping and the evolution of conditional cooperation and cheating strategies. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 365, 2675-2686
- Mu ¨ ller, C.A. and Manser, M.B. (2007) 'Nasty neighbours' rather than 'dear enemies' in a social carnivore. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 274, 959-965
- Arnold, S.J. (1983) Sexual selection: the interface of theory and empiricism. In Mate Choice (Bateson, P., ed.), pp. 67-107, Cambridge University Press
- Irschick, D.J. et al. (2008) How does selection operate on whole- organism functional performance capacities? A review and synthesis. Evol. Ecol. Res. 10, 177-196
- Auld, J.R. et al. (2010) Re-evaluating the costs and limits of adaptive phenotypic plasticity. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 277, 503-511
- Burns, J.G. et al. (2011) Costs of memory: lessons from 'mini' brains. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 278, 923-929
- Mery, F. and Kawecki, T.J. (2003) A fitness cost of learning ability in Drosophila melanogaster. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 270, 2465-2469
- Mello, C.V. et al. (1992) Song presentation induces gene expression in the songbird forebrain. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 89, 6818
- Mello, C.V. and Jarvis, E.D. (2008) Behavior-dependent expression of inducible genes invocal learning birds. In Neuroscience of Bird Song (Zeigler, H.P. and Marler, P., eds), pp. 381-397, Cambridge University Press
- Machado, H.E. et al. (2009) Interspecific profiling of gene expression informed by comparative genomic hybridization: A review and a novel approach in African cichlid fishes. Integr. Comp. Biol. 49, 644-659
- Cummings, M.E. et al. (2008) Sexual and social stimuli elicit rapid and contrasting genomic responses. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 275, 393-402
Cited by
Sorted by citations
A framework for studying social complexity
Kappeler, P. M. (2019) · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · doi:10.1007/s00265-018-2601-8 · Cited by 316 · see citing works
Temporal dynamics of social hierarchy formation and maintenance in male mice
Williamson, C. M., Lee, W., & Curley, J. P. (2016) · Animal Behaviour · doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.03.004 · Cited by 150 · see citing works
Neurogenomic mechanisms of social plasticity
Cardoso, S. D., Teles, M. C., & Oliveira, R. F. (2015) · Journal of Experimental Biology · doi:10.1242/jeb.106997 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
Self-citationWilliamson, C. M., Franks, B., & Curley, J. P. (2016) · Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00152 · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Williamson, C. M., Romeo, R. D., & Curley, J. P. (2017) · Hormones and Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2016.11.001 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Milewski, T. M., Lee, W., Young, R. L., Hofmann, H. A., & Curley, J. P. (2025) · PLoS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1011548 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
- Authors
- Taborsky, B., & Oliveira, R. F.
- Affiliations
- Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (PT)
- ORCID
- Oliveira, Rui F.
- Venue
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-12
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 679-688
- ISSN
- 0169-5347 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2115788752
- Cited by
- 419
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 2.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nd)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (133066)
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (PTDC/PSI-PCO/118776/2010)
- 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
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- social competence, behavioral flexibility, social evolution, social plasticity, social information, Darwinian fitness, trade-offs, developmental history, social behavior
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Behavior, Animal, Brain, Biological Evolution, Gene Expression Regulation, Nerve Net, Social Behavior, Genetic Fitness
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
