[Grey-Walter] [info] Me ha llegado esto de la lista Alergic: Group decision-making in animals

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Nature 421, 155 - 158 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01294



Group decision-making in animals

L. CONRADT AND T. J. ROPER

School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK

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.


-- 

                   "la obediencia empieza por la consciencia
                       y la consciencia por la desobediencia"
                                                   Eric Fromm

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