Formal dominance: the emperor's new clothes?
I previously argued that formal dominance requires the ability to attribute knowledge to other individuals (D. Maestripieri, 1996). Formal dominance is otherwise indistinguishable from the way dominance has previously been conceptualized. For example, the notion that nonhuman primates have social relationships and that 2 individuals express their knowledge about the state of their relationship with signals of dominance and submission is intrinsic to the concept of dominance and not peculiar to formal dominance. Moreover, the claims made by formal dominance supporters that macaque signals such as the bared-teeth display are always displayed unidirectionally to other group members and never directed to predators are incorrect. If the mentalistic terms used to describe formal dominance must not be taken literally, then the interpretation of submissive signals such as the bared-teeth display from a formal dominance perspective remains unclear.