Better baboon break-ups: collective decision theory of complex social network fissions

Abstract

Many social groups are made up of complex social networks in which each individual associates with a distinct subset of its groupmates. If social groups become larger over time, competition often leads to a permanent group fission. During such fissions, complex social networks present a collective decision problem and a multidimensional optimization problem: it is advantageous for each individual to remain with their closest allies after a fission, but impossible for every individual to do so. Here, we develop computational algorithms designed to simulate group fissions in a network-theoretic framework. We focus on three fission algorithms (democracy, community and despotism) that fall on a spectrum from a democratic to a dictatorial collective decision. We parameterize our social networks with data from wild baboons ( Papio cynocephalus ) and compare our simulated fissions with actual baboon fission events. We find that the democracy and community algorithms (egalitarian decisions where each individual influences the outcome) better maintain social networks during simulated fissions than despotic decisions (driven primarily by a single individual). We also find that egalitarian decisions are better at predicting the observed individual-level outcomes of observed fissions, although the observed fissions often disturbed their social networks more than the simulated egalitarian fissions.