Inequality is not unique to human groups and societies. Individuals with relatively little power possess a variety of behavioral strategies to counterbalance or regulate power differences. In humans, these strategies include criticism, ridicule, disobedience, or even the expulsion or execution of powerful individuals. Similar inequality-reducing behaviors, which carry comparable social costs, are also found in animal societies.
"When powerful animals behave aggressively to gain better access to food or mating partners, other group members may respond with leveling behaviors," says Dr. Danai Papageorgiou, behavioral biologist and head of the Emmy Noether Research Group Maintaining the Balance of Power in Animal Societies at Humboldt University of Berlin. "Until now, leveling behavior in animal societies has rarely been examined within a unified conceptual framework."
An international team of researchers—including Dr. Papageorgiou, Prof. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Prof. Sarah F. Brosnan, and Prof. Eli D. Strauss—has now published the first theoretical study on the concept of leveling behavior in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
"We discuss a wide range of leveling behaviors across many animal societies—including birds, primates, small mammals, and even invertebrates—that may look different but function in similar ways," explains Dr. Papageorgiou. "What was particularly surprising was the strong overlap between different categories of animal leveling behavior and those known from small-scale human societies."
