Conradt Larissa, Roper Timothy J
Department of Biology and Environmental Science, John Maynard Smith Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, BN1 9QG.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2005 Aug;20(8):449-56. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2005.05.008. Epub 2005 Jun 2.
Individual animals routinely face decisions that are crucial to their fitness. In social species, however, many of these decisions need to be made jointly with other group members because the group will split apart unless a consensus is reached. Here, we review empirical and theoretical studies of consensus decision making, and place them in a coherent framework. In particular, we classify consensus decisions according to the degree to which they involve conflict of interest between group members, and whether they involve either local or global communication; we ask, for different categories of consensus decision, who makes the decision, what are the underlying mechanisms, and what are the functional consequences. We conclude that consensus decision making is common in non-human animals, and that cooperation between group members in the decision-making process is likely to be the norm, even when the decision involves significant conflict of interest.
个体动物经常面临对其健康至关重要的决策。然而，在社会性物种中，许多这类决策需要与其他群体成员共同做出，因为除非达成共识，群体将会分裂。在此，我们回顾了关于共识决策的实证研究和理论研究，并将它们置于一个连贯的框架中。特别是，我们根据共识决策涉及群体成员之间利益冲突的程度，以及是否涉及局部或全局沟通来对其进行分类；对于不同类别的共识决策，我们会问，谁做出决策，潜在机制是什么，以及功能后果是什么。我们得出结论，共识决策在非人类动物中很常见，并且即使决策涉及重大利益冲突，群体成员在决策过程中的合作也可能是常态。
