[ellen364]

Dugatkin, "Winner and Loser Effects and the Structure of Dominance Hierarchies" was an interesting read this morning. Thanks for the reference.

The main thing I take away from the paper is that (in computer simulations) bigger winner effects and bigger loser effects lead to strongly defined hierarchies. Fewer subjects have ambiguous positions.

I'm not sure the paper speaks much to which strategies (e.g. violence vs cooperation) are more common or effective.

[glenstein]

Right, it seems to entirely abstract away the nature of the interactions themselves, and is modeling how changes to position in hierarchy unfold over time with repeated wins or losses. It's not speaking to the nature of the interaction itself, and so not really taking sides on whether it does or doesn't involve such things as force, toughness, etc.