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The Natural Selection of Hierarchies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

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With all its attendant weaknesses, the current popularity of drawing parallels between the findings of animal ethologists and human behaviour may well prove to be a fruitful aid to our understanding of the human condition. I would like to take one rather commonplace example: It frequently happens in ethology laboratories and poultry farms that a group of hens meet each other in a fairly confined space for the first time. In the case of grown birds which are strangers, a series of single combats is engaged in, with each bird pairing off with every other in a way which to the casual glance appears random. Actually, what is developing is a ‘peck-order’ in which the leader of the flock can peck any other hen without herself being pecked, the second hen can peck all but the top hen, and the rest are arranged in a descending hierarchy ending with a hen which is pecked by all, but pecks no one. The amount of aggressiveness shown in the contests varies with different individuals, but once the peck order has been determined, pecking starts to decrease, as individuals recognize their superiors, and eventually simply raising or lowering the head can be sufficient to register dominance or submission respectively.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

page 139 note 1 See, for example, Edwards, V. C. Wynne,Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour.Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh,1962Google Scholar.

page 140 note 1 See Adorno, T. W.,The Authoritarian Personality. Harper, New York,1950Google Scholar, and cf. my previous articles, ‘Authority and Democracy’,New Blackfriars, March and April,1969.

page 140 note 2 New Blackfriars, April,1969.

page 140 note 3 For an up‐to‐date review of Dogmatism see Vacchiano, Ralph B. et al., ‘The Open and Closed Mind:A Review of Dogmatism, Psychol.Bull. 71 (4),261273.1969CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

page 140 note 4 Burns, & Stalker, ,The Management of Innovation, London, Tavistock,1960Google Scholar.

page 141 note 1 Adrian Hastings, ‘The Catholic Church in East Africa’,Convergence4:16‐18,1969.

page 143 note 1 I first heard this suggestion proposed by Canon Fra¸ois Houtart of Louvain University.

page 144 note 1 Brown, Roger,Social Psychology.London, Collier‐Macmillan,1965Google Scholar.

page 144 note 2 Rokeach, Milton, The Open and Closed Mind.New York, Basic Books,1960Google Scholar.