Group decision-making in animals
Open accessAbstract
Groups of animals often need to make communal decisions, for example about which activities to perform, when to perform them and which direction to travel in; however, little is known about how they do so. Here, we model the fitness consequences of two possible decision-making mechanisms: 'despotism' and 'democracy'. We show that under most conditions, the costs to subordinate group members, and to the group as a whole, are considerably higher for despotic than for democratic decisions. Even when the despot is the most experienced group member, it only pays other members to accept its decision when group size is small and the difference in information is large. Democratic decisions are more beneficial primarily because they tend to produce less extreme decisions, rather than because each individual has an influence on the decision per se. Our model suggests that democracy should be widespread and makes quantitative, testable predictions about group decision-making in non-humans.
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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 [5]
Cites
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Boinski, S., & Campbell, A. F. (1995) · Behaviour · doi:10.1163/156853995x00054 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
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Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move
Couzin, I. D., Krause, J., Franks, N. R., & Levin, S. A. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature03236 · Cited by 2,753 · see citing works
Uninformed individuals promote democratic consensus in animal groups
Couzin, I. D., Ioannou, C. C., Demirel, G., Gross, T., Torney, C. J., Hartnett, A., Conradt, L., Levin, S. A., & Leonard, N. E. (2011) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1210280 · Cited by 451 · see citing works
Self-citationLeadership, consensus decision making and collective behaviour in humans
Dyer, J. R. G., Johansson, A., Helbing, D., Couzin, I. D., & Krause, J. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0233 · Cited by 396 · see citing works
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Stewardship of global collective behavior
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Model of human collective decision-making in complex environments
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Rules of departure: Antiphony and personalized vocal spaces in wild male elephant group coordination
Rantsiou, E. (2024) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2024.02.07.579388 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“It is thought that in many cases, the use of repeated vocalizations prior to de-parture helps to reach a decision threshold - something like a voting mechanism - which triggers action [5, 6].”
Background
- Authors
- Conradt, L., & Roper, T. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Conradt, L.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2003-01
- Volume
- 421
- Issue
- 6919
- Pages
- 155-158
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2016657432
- Cited by
- 529
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 29 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 11.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- group decision making, animal collective behavior, despotism, democracy, fitness effects, social hierarchy, group size, information asymmetry, decision-making mechanisms, animal social behavior
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Behavior, Animal, Decision Making, Democracy, Group Processes, Models, Biological, Population Density, Social Behavior
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