Consider the following two scenarios. First, a group of
cows are all grazing in a field. Second, a group of Duke Students are all in the cafeteria eating food. Which group would
the average person say has more freedom? This is the question that two researchers, L. Conradt and T. J. Roper, discuss in
their research article published in Nature magazine. Well, not exactly, but they do discuss how animals make decisions within
the context of their group. Intuitively, the Duke Students would seem to have more freedom, but Conradt and Roper’s
theory contradicts this as will be seen later. In the end, they seem to be about equal in their power to influence the actions
of their respective groups.
Animals that live in a group are often faced with the
challenge of deciding what actions the group should take. It is well-documented by previous researchers that groups face these
decisions, but how the group makes these decisions has been essentially unknown. Two researchers, Conradt and Roper, analyze
two possible methods that the animals might use to settle on an action in their January 9, 2003 article published in Nature
entitled “Group Decision-Making in Animals.” The first method, despotism, is when the leader or most experienced
member of the group makes the decision for the entire group. The second, democracy, occurs when the majority of the group
consents to take a certain action and the group then takes that action. Conradt and Roper claim that democracy is usually
the best choice since it most often benefits both the group as a whole and the majority of its members. In contrast, despotism
is a better choice when there are very few animals in the group and the leader has significantly more information than the
rest of the group. This is true, not because the decision theoretically has been influenced by every member of the group,
but because the results are generally less radical than the despotic process.
Behavioral ecologists have generally assumed that the
despotic process was the default for animals because they believed that animals lacked the cerebral capacity or ability to
cast and count votes. Conradt and Roper, however, have observed that animals can cast votes through a variety of methods,
animals can indeed cast votes. They also observed that animals can count votes roughly by estimating a percentage of the group
or by measuring intensity if the group votes aurally. For example, red deer decide when the group should move by waiting until
a certain percentage of the adults are standing. Another example is gorillas that move when a certain percentage of the group
is calling.
How long an activity is performed is a very important
question that the group of animals must determine. Conradt and Roper called the productivity lost by stopping an activity
either too early or too late “synchronization cost”. For ease of understanding how synchronization cost works,
recall the earlier scenarios of the cows and the dining Duke Students. In a democratic group, this is a compromise between
all individuals in the group and they stop when just over half of the group has finished with the activity. Once half of the
cows have grazed until they no longer need food or once half of the students have enough food, then the groups stop and leave.
One would think that the Duke Students could just stay until they finished eating, but often once half of the students at
a table leave, the rest feel pressured to leave because they do not want to be left sitting alone at the table. In the end,
nearly none of the group members participate in the activity for precisely the amount of time that they would like to, but
overall, each member in the group is relatively close to their ideal amount of time spent on the activity. In the despotic
group, all members participate in the activity exactly as long as the leader wants to. This means that if the leader isn’t
near the average of how long the individual group members want to spend on the activity (like if a teacher controls the student’s
eating habits and happens to be a very fast eater), then very few of the members will actually get close to their ideal amount
of time spent on the activity (Conradt and Roper).
Conradt and Roper claim that in all cases there is a lower
synchronization cost for doing things in some sort of democratic way instead of doing things the despotic way. Over many different
activities, like eating many different meals, the difference in synchronization cost adds up and can end up favoring the democratic
decision-making process heavily. The animals and Duke Students both will be much better nourished using the democratic process
over the despotic process. The majority of the time, the democratic process is more effective (Conradt and Roper). Of course,
the homogeneity of the individuals within the group must be taken into account because it can affect how synchronization cost
is calculated if the group is all of the same opinion or if all the members of the group vary in opinion.
Another factor to be included in the calculation of synchronization
cost is the fact that if the members of the group are in error when assessing their ideal stopping point of an activity (for
example not correctly gauging the predator risk) then they might be better off following instructions from an elder, more
experienced member of the group (Conrady and Roper). This is only beneficial; however, if the more experienced member’s
idea of the ideal amount of time for an activity is off by less than the median ideal time of the group (which is rare). Again,
this offers more evidence that the democratic way of making decisions is more efficient.
There are currently very few studies
that analyze the theoretical aspects of animal’s group decision-making. Conradt’s and Roper’s thesis seems
to offer legitimate evidence of the benefit of a democratic system of decision making. Their claim contradicts other previous
claims that animals weren’t intelligent enough to make democratic decisions and only made despotic decisions. If Conradt’s
and Roper’s statement holds true, then it would mean that the animals actually have more influence over the actions
of their group than Duke Students have over the actions of their university. When was the last time that Nan asked each student
to vote on the direction that the Campaign for Duke was going to take? Or when were the students consulted about new construction?
They never were, but according to Conradt and Roper, higher level animals almost always are. It just seems amazing that animals
seem to have more influence than Duke Students.
References
Conradt, L. and
Roper, T. J. (2003). Group Decision-Making In Animals.
Nature, 421, 155-158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature01294
