Crickets

Crickets are used to show how experience can shape competitive behavior without individual recognition: a general memory of wins and losses changes how likely they are to fight or yield. In a closed group, these shifts can produce a rank order and gradually reduce serious fights.

Memory and Fighting Behavior

A cricket that has recently won many fights becomes more likely to behave hawkishly, while one on a losing streak becomes more likely to behave dovishly. R. D. Alexander demonstrated this effect with a model cricket: after it was used to defeat real crickets, those crickets became more likely to lose subsequent fights against other real crickets. The example illustrates a general adjustment in estimated fighting ability, rather than memory of a particular opponent.

How a Rank Order Emerges

When crickets with this general memory remain together in a closed group, their repeated contests can sort them into a kind of dominance hierarchy. Individuals lower in the order tend to give way to those higher up. The account does not require the crickets to recognize one another: those accustomed to winning become increasingly likely to win, while those accustomed to losing become increasingly likely to lose. Even if initial victories and defeats were random, these reinforcing tendencies could generate a rank order.

Consequences and Contrast

As the group sorts itself out, the number of serious fights gradually declines. The qualification “a kind of” matters: the book distinguishes this cricket pattern, based on general memories of fighting outcomes, from dominance hierarchies in which animals recognize particular opponents. Hens and monkeys are offered as contrasts: they can remember specific individuals, and a hen introduced to unfamiliar hens learns her place relative to each of them. Crickets show a different route to reduced aggression, one grounded in accumulated outcomes rather than individual recognition.