Winning, losing, and reaching out

Abstract

Here, we argue that behavioral ecologists can do even more than we have done to facilitate new, interdisciplinary collaborations. Our argument is a general one, but we focus on how to do this with winner and loser effects. We develop a new, general model of winner and loser effects as the outcome of flexible decisions about how much to invest in competition and discuss the model's implications for overall levels of conflict within a species. Finally, we argue that winner and loser effects is a topic ripe for fostering collaborations with researchers in cultural anthropology and sports psychology.Key words : game theory, loser effect, tug-of-war model, winner effect.We would be rude and remiss if we did not start off with the appropriate salutation on an occasion such as this: Happy 25th anniversary, dear Behavioral Ecology! Perhaps it sounds overly emotional, but both of us love being behavioral ecologists, and we think Behavioral Ecology is a wonderful representative of our cherished discipline.The field of behavioral ecology, which seeks no less than to understand how ecology sets the stage on which natural selection acts on behavior, has grown by leaps and bounds since this journal was initiated. One of the many ways this has happened is by behavioral ecologists reaching out to those in related, and sometimes seemingly unrelated, disciplines-cognitive psychology, biological anthropology, mathematics, economics, and political science, to name just a few-and fostering collaborations, with the long-term goal of a deeper understanding of the roots of behavior. Not surprisingly, when such links are first established, each side can be reluctant to take the perspective of the other; but in time, openminded scientists, after heated discussions, sort through all that. We applaud this aggressive, interdisciplinary, collaborative approach and we try to take it ourselves-indeed, it is one of the many reasons we are behavioral ecologists.In this article, we simply want to make the case that behavioral ecologists can, and should, do even more to facilitate new, interdisciplinary collaborations. Our argument is a general one, but as a case in point, we focus on the winner and loser effects that behavioral ecologists have been studying from both proximate and ultimate perspectives, expand this work by developing a new, general model of winner and loser effects and their implications and argue that this topic is ripe for fostering collaborations with researchers in cultural anthropology and sports psychology.

Social alliances improve rank and fitness in convention-based societies

“…In attribute-based hierarchies, dominance rank depends on physical or behavioral qualities of individual group members. These attributes can be morphological traits affecting ability to win fights (7) [e.g., body size in elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) (8)], ability to produce a behavioral display [e.g., piping in oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) (9)], or a morphological display such as status badges [e.g., face masks in paper wasps (Polistes dominulus) (10)]. Attribute-based dominance hierarchies have been well studied, and fluctuations in these attributes are associated with corresponding fluctuations in dominance status (e.g., ref.…”

Dynamic Status Signal Reflects Outcome of Social Interactions, but Not Energetic Stress

“…Female goldfinches avoid competitive interactions with other females that express colorful bills (Murphy et al, 2009), so the fact that bill color changes in response to competitive interactions means that the outcome of those interactions may potentially influence the outcome of future interactions, which could lead to winner-loser effects-the phenomenon in which winners of social contests experience a higher probability of winning future contests while losers experience a lower probability, independent of their respective intrinsic resource holding power (e.g., Landau, 1951a,b;Hsu et al, 2006Hsu et al, , 2009Hock and Huber, 2009;Fawcett and Johnstone, 2010;Fuxjager and Marler, 2010;Dugatkin and Reeve, 2014). Because both winners and losers stand to benefit from reliable information about the likelihood that losers will challenge winners in future contests, a signaling system that provides such information could evolve in species that live in stable groups in which individuals directly compete for resources.…”

“…This "social experience signaling" hypothesis stems from work indicating that winner and loser effects (Landau, 1951a,b) can increase fitness for both winners and losers in social groups (Dugatkin and Reeve, 2014). Thus, expression of a dynamic signal of status tied to a competitor's past history (see Rutte et al, 2006) could allow superior competitors to use their signals to preemptively avoid unnecessary costly exertion of dominance during agonistic interactions, while also allowing inferior competitors to avoid wasting time and energy and incurring risk of physical harm from battling in light of a foregone conclusion (sensu Rohwer, 1975).…”

Rethinking the evolution of property and possession: A review and methodological proposition

“…The “Restraint with Retaliation” strategy involves retaliating only when someone challenges your access to an object . The strategy is evolutionarily stable, under strict model conditions, which incorporate repeated raids over time and winner and loser effects (see Glossary) . Full restraint from raiding, meaning respecting property, would not spread in a population of “unconditional raiders,” who will never show restraint.…”

“…3 The strategy is evolutionarily stable, under strict model conditions, which incorporate repeated raids over time and winner and loser effects (see Glossary). 3,23,35,36 Full restraint from raiding, meaning respecting property, would not spread in a population of "unconditional raiders," who will never show restraint. However, "Restraint with Retaliation" could plausibly spread because as population size increases, the presence of additional individuals will increase the likelihood of a raiding individual being raided in return which would increase the costs associated with raiding.…”