PRIMATE COGNITION AND THE BARED-TEETH DISPLAY - A REEVALUATION OF THECONCEPT OF FORMAL DOMINANCE

The cognitive implications of the phenomenon of dominance in nonhuman primates and other animals have been poorly addressed. This article sh ows that the concept of formal dominance currently used in the primato logical literature is inherently dependent on the assumption that prim ates are capable of attribution of knowledge to other individuals. Alt hough this assumption has never been made explicitly, without it the c oncept of formal dominance is virtually indistinguishable from other, more traditional views of dominance. Recent studies have failed to dem onstrate attribution of knowledge in nonhuman primates, thus questioni ng the validity of formal dominance. The concept of formal dominance w as originally proposed to account for a discrepancy between dominance hierarchies based on aggressive behavior and dominance hierarchies bas ed on submissive signals. This article shows that such a discrepancy c an be accounted for without invoking complex cognitive processes such as attribution of knowledge.